Snidgets
by MrsTater
Summary: Third year Auror cadet Tonks is assigned a special case which takes her back to school and into the DADA office. The new professor has a few mysteries of his own, which require more time to solve and a few tactics not covered in Auror training.
1. Puzzle Pieces

_Originally written for the Lovers' Moon Fic Jumble at MetamorFic Moon, the first four chapters of this fic won the Readers' Choice award. As always, thanks to **Godricgal**, beta extraordinaire._

* * *

**1. Puzzle Pieces**

Tonks stopped talking.

Across the desk, the keen yellow eyes studied her, unblinking behind the wire-rimmed glasses perched low on the Head of Aurors' broad nose.

She squirmed under Rufus Scrimgeour's intense scrutiny, trying to keep her fingers from weaving nervously together, and instead to hold her shoulders erect. Back straight. Head high. Chin jutting just slightly, in that proud aristocratic posture her mother had so vigilantly sought to instil in her.

As it always had done, the decidedly non-aristocratic slumped shoulders characteristic of Ted Tonks won out over the Black side. Neither the Ravenclaw braininess she'd inherited from her dad, nor the occasional shrewd, self-serving Slytherin attributes that came from her mother, provided the courage Tonks needed to face this lionesque man. Not for the first time, she wished she'd been sorted into Gryffindor, as so many of the other Aurors and Auror cadets seemed to have been. Who'd have thought Slytherins and Ravenclaws bred Hufflepuffs? Her dad always said it was symbolic of their love story, but Tonks just thought it figured that a Metamorphmagus didn't really fit anywhere.

When Scrimgeour abruptly pushed his squeaky chair back from his desk, she cursed her persuasive abilities in the same way she cursed her balance. He stood and, with hands clasped behind his back, crossed the short space to the enchanted window. Magical Maintenance had declared today gloriously sunny, despite torrential rain outside. In the artificial light, the silver streaks seemed to disappear from the tawny mane of hair; but the lines of his face, particularly the grim line of his mouth, were _more_ visible. Tonks was sure they spelled the denial of her request.

_You may not be a Ravenclaw, Tonks, but you're clever enough to work out that you've got to be out of your bloody mind to think he'd actually go along with this mad--_

"I must say, Tonks," Scrimgeour's rumbling tones interrupted her harsh inner voice, "that I am quite at a loss as to why you think you're in danger of not qualifying for Auror come next summer."

He turned to her, eyes golden and acute as flame.

"It was, after all," he continued, "at Alastor Moody's insistence that I accepted you into he programme, and you have proved a worthy protégée of the best Auror the Ministry ever had."

Tonks dropped her gaze to her lap, and saw that her hands had slid down either side of her thighs to clutch the edges of her chair. As big an honour as it was to be Mad-Eye's protégée, there were more times it was a hell of a lot -- too much, even -- to live up to.

_Courage, Tonks. Just cos you're not a Gryffindor doesn't mean you haven't got courage. Have a little faith in yourself. You work hard. That's always got you what you want. _

She drew a deep breath. Released the chair from white-knuckled fingers. Looked up. Met Scrimgeour's eyes. Tried not to think about the fact that he held her future -- and really her whole life up to this moment -- in his hands. Instead, she tried to focus on the fact that he seemed disinclined to let her slip through his fingers.

_Except he would have to, if she missed the mark._

"Stealth and Tracking, Sir," Tonks said, hearing a catch in her voice as breathlessness stole through her chest again. "Particularly the Stealth part."

"Ah." Scrimgeour smiled slightly in understanding, and removed his spectacles to buff the lenses on his scarlet robes. "Yes, I do recall your second year marks being lower in those areas than in your other courses of study."

Her gaze drifted over his shoulder, to his Certificates of Meritorious Service framed on the walls; to the Order of Merlin encased in glass in a place of honour on a bookshelf; to the photographs of himself with past Ministers of Magic and Aurors of renown, not least among them Frank and Alice Longbottom and Mad-Eye, who had given life and limb for the law.

_This is what you're working for, Tonks. Success people can see and touch and believe._

Her attention was drawn back to Scrimgeour by a flash of white as he suddenly bared his teeth in a grin. "Though lower than perfect can hardly be considered low, can it?"

"Thank you, Sir."

Tonks started to protest that it was hardly fair to call her Concealment and Disguise marks perfect when they required no effort other than a scrunched up forehead, but before she could, Scrimgeour had put on his glasses and begun to speak again.

"Mightn't a dance class get to the root of the problem?" He clipped his fingers. "Nip those balance and coordination problems in the bud?"

"My mother tried, Sir. Unfortunately balance and coordination are required for dancing, as well."

"Yes, well." Scrimgeour gave a growling sort of chuckle as he limped back to his desk, piled high with sheaves of parchment and stacks of folders. He became serious again as he leant his weight against it. "Your training schedule is already very rigorous, Tonks."

"I'll make it work," she replied without hesitation. "Even if it's just the smallest of cases, I'd feel a lot better about the examinations if I've actually done a bit of detective work."

Scrimgeour's _hmm_ was a deep rumble in his throat as he ran his index finger along the edge of a file. "There is one I'd feel comfortable handing over to you -- under supervision, of course."

"Of course." Tonks sat up straight, though she doubted whether her mother would equate the posture of excitement with a noble demeanour. "What's the case, Sir?"

"MLE handed this over to the Auror division." Scrimgeour drew his wand from his breast pocket, gave it a little flick that pulled a folder from the bottom of a stack without upsetting it, and slid the folder across the desk to her. As she snatched it up eagerly, he went on, "I told Bones she was a damn fool if she thought my office could spare time from the Black search for some missing birds."

The file suddenly feeling like a Dark Object, it slipped from Tonks' hands, scattering papers onto the floor around her feet as it landed in her lap. "The Snidgets that were stolen from the Sheringham Snidget Sanctuary."

She winced at the flatness of her tone.

_Good job, Tonks. Whinge when he gives you what you asked for._

Fortunately Scrimgeour didn't seem to register any meaning from her tone apart from mutual disdain that Bones had seen fit to trouble him with the case. "Personally, I don't think MLE should lift a bloody finger to help that damn sanctuary. Isn't that what those places are for, to protect species? But those environmentalist nutters wake up one morning, and some bastard's nicked their entire damn flock of endangered Snidgets!"

"Bit careless, yeah," said Tonks, summoning the case documents from the floor to settle every which way in the folder open on her lap. Despite the fact that she'd wanted something more in line with the Black case, she couldn't squelch a slight interest in the missing birds. "There haven't been _any_ leads?"

"No one's had the time to look for any, what with Black escaping at about the same time." With a snort of disdain, Scrimgeour went on, "Newt Scamander thinks it's a conspiracy. Old fool read some article in _The Quibbler_ about Black being a smokescreen for the Snidgetnapper."

"If I were going to birdnap a bloody flock of Snidgets," said Tonks, "I know I'd stage the first ever in Wizarding history Azkaban breakout as a cover-up."

Scrimgeour's rich laugh rang through the office. "I'd give you your full qualification just for your sense of humour, you know."

"In that case," she said, slapping the folder down on the Head Auror's desk, "I'll stop dragging my bum out of bed every morning at the crack of dawn and start having nice lie-ins instead."

She laughed softly along with him because she felt she ought to, not because she really shared his humour. Probably she was being overly sensitive, but she couldn't help but feel rubbed the wrong way at the hint that her coveted job might be handed to her on a silver platter because of what she was, and not because she'd earned it.

When Scrimgeour's laughter died, and the office became quiet once again except for the hum of activity and magical energy from beyond the door, he handed her the file once more. "I'll give you this case, Tonks, if you want it. But you've nothing to prove to me."

"Thank you, Sir," said Tonks, standing and having to reach back for the arm rests as she caught her foot on a chair leg. "That means a lot. I think I've got something to prove to the squad, though."

The yellow eyes regarded her for another long moment, and Tonks pleaded silently with Merlin to let Scrimgeour know without her having to say that she sensed a degree of resentment from the other recruits about her natural aptitude for Concealment and Disguise, and her equally natural _in_eptitude for Stealth and Tracking, and over all, Mad-Eye's favouritism.

"Fair enough." Scrimgeour reached out to shake her hand firmly. "Tell Kingsley you're to report directly to him. I'll write up an official document granting you jurisdiction for questioning."

When Tonks tripped over her chair again on her way out of Scrimgeour's office, she turned back to him, blushing. "Just got tripped up by the idea of me having jurisdiction, Sir. Promise I'll be stealthy when I'm out in the field exercising it!"

* * *

"Where do you mean to start, then?" asked Kingsley Shacklebolt around his steak and kidney pie. 

"Well..." Tonks glanced around the Leaky Cauldron, which was practically empty due in part to the torrential downpour outside, as well as it being an hour before the dinner rush. In two years of Auror training, she'd got used to eating at off times, and not having much of a social life, but the gloomy weather did absolutely nothing for her today.

"First," she said, "I thought I'd search all the British Quidditch teams' equipment to see if they've gone back to old rules and are using Snidgets instead of Snitches. Then, if they don't turn up in Great Britain, I'll go to the Continent and check all the other teams' equipment."

Kingsley gulped down his food, then stared at her, eyes round with incredulity. "You're taking the piss."

Rolling her eyes, Tonks tore off a chunk of bread and dipped it in her stew. "Of course I'm taking the piss, Kingsley. What do you take me for, a complete idiot?"

He shrugged. "You never know with cadets."

Poised to pop her bread in her mouth, Tonks tossed the soggy bit at Kingsley, instead, hitting him squarely in the shoulder and leaving a globby brown trail on his Auror uniform as the bread slid down his chest.

"Oi! I just did the wash last night!"

"Stop whinging, you lazy bachelor! That's what _Scourgifies_ are for."

"Yeah, well you leave the _Scourgify_ to me. I've seen you cast them, and I won't have you stripping the dye--"

Tonks whisked out her wand. "Keep it up, Shacklebolt, or the dye won't be the only thing stripped--"

"_Expelliarmus_!"

Now it was Tonks who sat with her mouth hanging open.

Kingsley quirked an eyebrow; the golden hoop in his ear seemed to wink at her as it caught the light. "Awfully bold for a cadet, aren't you?"

Tonks leant across the table, upsetting her tankard of Butterbeer as she reached for her wand, which Kingsley used to clean up the drink before it could spill over the edge of the table.

"You know," Tonks said, snatching her wand and pocketing it, "I'm beginning to think it won't be Stealth and Tracking that keep me from qualifying, but this sense of humour thing. Is there some memo I've missed about Aurors not being allowed to have them?"

Kingsley shook his head and shovelled more steak and kidney pie into his mouth. "Humour's highly recommended. It's just most of us have had it beaten out of us after a few years on the squad."

"Maybe not qualifying would be a blessing, then."

Fork scraping the bottom of his plate, Kingsley caught her with a level stare. "Tonks, you've _got_ to stop saying you're not going to qualify. You'll jinx yourself."

"Okay," she said, dismissively, but Kingsley shook his head, refusing to let her continue.

"Look, I don't claim to know what you're thinking or feeling, but from where I stand--"

"You're not standing, you're sitting."

"--it looks like your problem is that you're trying to hard when certain people are watching."

Tonks slumped forward on her elbows and raked her fingers through her hair. "Why d'you think I want an assignment of my own?"

"If your problem's the pressure, shouldn't you work with a partner?"

"It's my own confidence issues," Tonks blurted, at once compelled to be honest with Kingsley, yet also hating herself for talking about lack of self-assurance to a bloody _Gryffindor_. "I need to have one good run at catching a baddie where I don't botch it by tripping over my own feet or falling downstairs. If I can have that, I'll be good to do it with a team."

After a moment of silent staring, Kingsley said, "Okay," then hunched over his dinner. "Though, it'd be simpler if you just got yourself a boyfriend."

Tonks choked on a bit of potato and washed it down with a swig of Butterbeer. Hoarsely, she sputtered, "A _boyfriend_?"

"Theoretically," said Kingsley in the sort of authoritative tones he used during training sessions, "you'll be much more awkward around a bloke you fancy than around your colleagues, right?"

"Theoretically?"

"So you'll get it out of your system whilst working out your sexual tension, and be tip top for the job."

Tonks felt her eyebrows disappear into her fringe as she watched Kingsley's poker face slowly break into a broad grin as his rich laughter rippled out.

With another, more dramatic, eye roll, Tonks dipped her bread into her stew and deliberated wasting more by throwing it at the senior Auror's other shoulder. "You're an idiot, Kingsley."

"No -- the idiot would be the person working overtime for a flock of sodding _Snidgets_."

Mouth too full to respond, Tonks could only hope her scowl lent the proper inflection to her otherwise unintelligible grunt.

"Just trying to remember that whole humour thing," said Kinglsey. "But since you clearly don't appreciate my jokes, I'll be perfectly serious." Smile falling from his face as one eyebrow arched, he asked, "Tell me -- where _do_ you plan to start?"

"I've got a better idea." Tonks drained her pint, wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, and stood. "I'll _show_ you."

* * *

From beneath her umbrella, Tonks watched Kingsley sweep his gaze over the Diagon Alley shop façade. His mouth was set in an unreadable line, but when he asked why she'd chosen the Magical Menagerie as the starting point for her investigation, she was sure he must be inwardly criticising her. 

"Because," she said, jaw tight and voice edgy, "the first rule of theft investigation is to look for stolen things is in places that sell things."

"Right." Kingsley nodded. "And since Snidgets are extremely rare, close to extinction, the most likely reason for theft would be profit."

"Hence the pet shop."

Kingsley held up his free hand, palm out. The gesture which was meant to be conciliatory, but it struck Tonks as maddening.

"No need to be defensive, Tonks. Only Scrimgeour wants this to be a teaching experience for me as much as a learning experience for you, and I thought I should point out--"

"The obvious?"

"No..." Kingsley drew the word out in a low, tolerant tone; at the same time, Tonks saw his fingers tighten around his umbrella handle.

The obvious sign that his patience was wearing thin made her stomach rebel slightly against the beef stew she'd had at the Leaky. _She_ was wearing it thin. _Kingsley's_ patience -- which, she'd noticed since he'd been put in charge of the Sirius Black search, seemed to be boundless.

She looked down at her red Wellies, normally spangled with white stars, but which she'd charmed off today for a more professional look. "Sorry. What did you want to point out?"

To Tonks' relief, Kingsley's deep tones contained no tension. "I wanted to ask whether a shop with the Magical Menagerie's repute was the most likely place to find stolen merchandise."

"Madam Dolittle's too sharp to have bought Snidgets," Tonks admitted, then added, "But she might have been asked." Her voice pitched higher at the end, creating more a question than a confident statement, which she wished she could take back because Kingsley would say the Snidget case had been all over the bleeding _Prophet_, even if it had been near the back; Madam Dolittle wouldn't have missed it, and would have contacted Magical Law Enforcement if anyone had tried to sell her any.

Thankfully, Kingsley only said, "She might have been." Tilting his head toward the door, he said, "Go on, then."

"Right." Tonks grabbed the handle, but didn't open the door. She stood, quite literally, at the threshold of one of the more pivotal moments of her life.

_You're going to walk through that door, Tonks, and question someone about a crime. You've got jurisdiction. The Head of Aurors trusts you. You're Mad-Eye's protégée for a reason._

Drawing a deep breath, she pulled the door open and strode through.

When she'd lowered her umbrella, shrunk it, and tucked it into her shoulder bag, she pulled Scrimgeour's sealed note from her pocket. Poised to flash it authoritatively at Madam Dolittle, she silently rehearsed the declaration she would make: _Wotcher. Tonks here, for the Auror Department. I'd like to ask you about a flock of Snidgets._

Except that drawing in a deep breath really wasn't the best idea to prepare yourself for crossing a pet shop threshold.

Tonks got a whiff of putrid sawdust mixed with cat litter and bird droppings, layered thickly over the smells of the animals themselves, along with the more pungent odours of the various flea and hairball potions. The stench very nearly physically knocked her down. It _did_ knock her bold opening statement right out of her head.

The only consoling thing was that Madam Dolittle was deep in conversation with a customer over one of the large rabbits that turned into a top hat, and Tonks wouldn't have been able to speak to her immediately, anyway. This gave her time to remember what she'd wanted to say, at least.

She glanced at her wristwatch. They'd better not talk about that bloody rabbit till she had to leave for her night tracking class. Or the stink better not kill her first. Merlin, it was noxious. Really, the air could be poisonous. _Would it be offensive to do a Bubble-head Charm?_ she wondered as she shuffled awkwardly around shelves and display tables, trying in vain to get someplace other than downwind. _Probably._

"If you won't consider getting a boyfriend, Tonks," boomed Kingsley's voice, _his_ flow of air clearly not troubled by smells as he browsed a row of meowing cages, "you could always get a cat instead."

"And take up reading soppy Fifi Lafoile bodice-rippers when I'm off duty? Now _that's_ less idiotic than hunting Snidget thieves."

"Hey now," said Kingsley, arching a brow as he looked up from lifting a black kitten which looked tiny in his huge hands. "My mum's got cats and reads those."

"Don't bring your mum into this." Tonks stepped nearer to Kingsley as the kitten rubbed its face against his thumb and flicked beckoning green eyes toward her. "You're the one who's being a git, taking cheap shots at my social life."

"Cadets never have social lives."

"Do you always rub their noses in it?"

"Always."

Despite her brain telling her that this kitten was one of the culprits in making this shop reek, Tonks reached out a hand to rub its cheeks. "You're such a lovely bloke, Kingsley."

Merlin, the kitten was so soft, and let out such a tiny mew, that it was all she could do not to say, _Her's an adowable fwuffy ickle furball, oh yes her is! _ Maybe a cat wasn't such a bad idea. She wasn't home much, and even though she had a flatmate, Desdemona was a Mediwitch for the Tutshill Tornados and travelled with the team, so when Tonks _was_ home, her flat got awfully lonely sometimes. Imagine this little girl bounding to greet her when she came home, rubbing against her leg, purring, curling up with her in bed...

_Adding a lot more chores to your list of householdy things you never do._

Tonks withdrew her hand from scratching the kitten's head and, stepping back from Kingsley, settled it on her hip.

"And you're single by choice, right?" she asked, drawing his eye. "Not because senior Aurors' social lives are even more pathetic than cadets'?"

Shooting her a mock glower, Kingsley opened his mouth in retort, but before he could get a word out, the bell jangled as the customer exited the shop with a new pet rabbit, and the proprietress picked her way around the cages and other merchandise stacked haphazardly around the cash desk.

"Mr. Shacklebolt." She blinked owlishly behind her thick, black-framed glasses as she wiped a hand on her apron which, Tonks noted, was covered with animal fur. Tonks didn't even want to know what it was stuck to her skin with. "Miss--"

"Tonks," she introduced herself. "Rufus Scrimgeour's sent us..." _It's your assignment!_ "Sent _me_...to ask..." She drew a breath to steady her trembling voice. "Do you know anything about the Snidgets that went missing from the sanctuary up in Sheringham?"

Madam Dolittle stepped backward into the cash desk, mouth agape and eyes as huge as Sybill Trelawney's.

"Nobody's accusing you, Madam Dolittle!" Tonks assured her, and quickly explained why the investigation had brought her here.

By degrees the shop keeper relaxed, though when Tonks had finished, Madam Dolittle shook her head and clucked her tongue as she reached into a tank and stroked the smooth, shimmery scales of a lizard.

"Sorry, Miss, but there's not been--oh!" The lizard scuttled away from her and hid between two rocks. "There _was_ this fellow! I've just remembered!"

"Who? When?" Heart racing, Tonks scrabbled in her bag for a notebook and quill.

_Keep your hair on, Tonks,_ she told herself, as she caught a sideways glimpse of Kingsley obviously battling a laugh as he pretended to play with the kitten. _You're making a bleeding idiot of yourself in front of Kingsley. It's your first investigation, not your first sodding date._

But Madam Dolittle hadn't seemed to notice any lack of professionalism and, without further prompting, said, "I couldn't tell you much about him, only that he was a real shabby, shady character -- the sort you'd meet in Knockturn Alley, if you know what I mean. Of course you know what I mean. You're an Auror, you deal with that lot every day."

"Actually I've only just begun my third year of training," Tonks said. "D'you remember anything specific about him? A unique feature? The colour of his hair? Something about the way he walked?"

After a moment's thought, Madam Dolittle frowned and said, "No. It was a right zoo in here that day -- you know, the start of term rush."

Tonks started to sigh, but then the shopkeeper brightened and said, proudly, "I could tell you the date, though! I sold a great ginger cat that day, to one of the schoolgirls. Bushiest hair I ever laid eyes on. The girl, not the cat. Though the cat's fairly fluffy, himself...I remember because the puss went mad and chased the youngest Weasley boy's rat. Unnaturally old rat, remarkable. And I keep records of every sale, so I can tell you when they came in here, if that's any help at all."

Before Tonks could say it would be, Madam Dolittle's eyebrows slanted sharply, knitting at the bridge of her nose.

"But I'm sorry to say the cat and rat distracted me from paying the man any mind except to tell him I didn't buy stock from strangers and to please get off the premises."

Tonks' heart sank as she felt the potential clue slip through her fingers, but then Madam Dolittle, in the middle of a ramble about how she noticed animals more than people, grinned again.

"Though now I think of it," she said, "I seem to recall maybe he stank."

"Must've reeked if you could smell him over all this," Tonks muttered as she scratched out a note -- then dropped her quill as it registered what she'd just said. "Oh Bloody hell! Madam Dolittle, I didn't mean--"

The shopkeeper cackled. "Merlin love you! It's a pet shop! I know it stinks to high heaven in here!"

Relieved, Tonks continued to blush as she wrangled her quill from a very fat tabby that had appeared from nowhere and pounced on it. "What sort of smell did the bloke have?"

Smiling apologetically, Madam Dolittle spread her hands. "Truth be told, I don't smell much these days."

"That's okay," Tonks said, though she gritted her teeth that a faulty olfactory system stood between her and the Snidgetnapper. Not sure it gave her any real lead whatsoever, she asked as she stood, "If I can just get that date from you -- and the name of the girl who bought the cat from you? She might've noticed the smelly man inquiring after Snidgets. And a Weasley was with her, you said?"

Madam Dolittle bobbed her head and motioned for Tonks to follow her to the cash desk. She licked her index finger, which Tonks was sure she couldn't have washed since she'd handled that rabbit, then thumbed through her account book. "August...August...the...thirty-first...A

h! Here we are! One ginger cat, sold to Miss Hermione Granger...And one phial rat tonic sold to Mr. Ronald Weasley."

As Tonks scribbled down the names, Madam Dolittle said, "Talking of school children, have you seen the _Evening Prophet_?"

"No." Tonks glanced back at Kingsley, who looked up from the black kitten he was returning to its cage with an expression of keen interest. "What's happened to them?"

"Just one, but horrible, horrible. Miracle he was the only child hurt, and even luckier he was only hurt, and not killed!" Madam Dolittle's spectacles slipped down onto the end of her hooked nose as she rifled through the papers littering the desk. "Seem to have mislaid my copy...probably lining a bird cage already..." She looked up and pushed her glasses up. "Rubeus Hagrid's teaching Care of Magical Creatures there now, and he thought it would be a brilliant idea to teach his third years how to handle Hippogriffs!"

"Bloody hell!" cried Tonks, as Kingsley let out a low whistle. "I reckon he's been sacked, then?"

Madam Dolittle clucked her tongue. "I can't imagine the governors would allow him to stay. It was Lucius Malfoy's son got slashed." She winced and hissed through her teeth. "Hippogriff talons. Most grown witches and wizards can't stand a good cat scratch. But a boy clawed by a Hippogriff--"

"Kingsley!" Tonks wheeled around. "Will you excuse me from Tracking tonight?"

He arched his eyebrows, begging for an explanation.

"I've got a bit of tracking of my own to do." The words tumbled out, like a barrage of spells during a duel, as excitement welled up. _This_ was why she'd become an Auror. This rush she got from puzzling clues together. "At Hogwarts."

"Sorry, Tonks, but if you're going to question kids, you've got to get parental permission -- through Scrimgeour."

"Not the kids. Ha--" Remembering they were in public, Tonks stepped away from the desk, closer to Kingsley, and cast a _Muffliato_. "I want to question Hagrid!"

"You think _Hagrid_ stole the Snidgets?"

Tonks cringed to hear her puzzle pieces put together like _that_, accusing a man she'd always thought of as very kindly, if a bit simple, of theft. Her heart sank heavily as she considered that Hagrid wasn't even a fully qualified wizard. Making off with an entire flock of rare and protected birds required a bit of a criminal mastermind, didn't it? And brains aside, Hagrid was hardly the _type_, was he?

"I didn't mean--" She stopped short as Kingsley's eyebrows rose higher up.

"What's your instinct, Tonks? What came together to make you think of Hagrid?"

Without hesitation, Tonks replied, "The Hippogriff. The actual theft of the Snidgets is irrelevant. What _is_ relevant is that the sort of bloke that gets hold of Hippogriffs for the classroom's _exactly_ the sort that might come into contact with snatched Snidgets. Whether by theft or by thief."

Kingsley's earring glimmered in the shop light. "Go on, then. Tonight you'll have your own Tracking class at Hogwarts. Better fly, if you don't want to be tardy."

_Stop grinning like a sodding idiot, Tonks. It's not Aurorly._

But try as she might, she couldn't stop.

_Bugger Aurorly. You've got a lead for your very own case. And they like you because you laugh and smile._

"Thanks, Kingsley!"

She bounded for the door -- but that gigantic cat (Was it a relation of Mrs. Norris'?) ran through her path, and as she flailed for balance, it occurred to her she ought to thank Madam Dolittle for the lead.

The shopkeeper didn't acknowledge the thanks she threw back over her shoulder -- because Tonks hadn't undone the Muffliato Charm. But, seeing as her feet seemed intent on blundering out the door, Tonks made up her mind that when she solved this case tonight, she'd show her gratitude properly by coming back and buying a cat.

* * *

_**A/N: I appreciate my readers very much and would love to know what you think of the start of this "What if Remus and Tonks met before the Order?" scenario. Those who comment can be assured an appearance from our favorite DADA professor in the next chapter. Well, unless your favorite DADA professor is Snape. Then I can't promise to deliver... ;)**_

_**A/N: If you let me know what you thought of this chapter, I promise Remus will be in chapter two. **_


	2. Leads

**2. Leads**

The flight through rainy London drenched Tonks through, but after the stench of the Magical Menagerie, she found it quite refreshing. A few miles outside the city she got through the storm system; the wind dried her hair and clothes quickly enough, and a warming charm took care of the chill. She charmed the stars back on her Wellies, undid the belt of her raincoat, and grinned at the sound of the fabric flapping as she zigzagged round flocks of birds.

Pushing her Comet Two Sixty to full speed, she shot upward and then, mentally reciting the mantra _destination, determination, and deliberation_, abruptly dove. The crack of Apparition, like a jolt of lightning, made her blood surge as the pressing, squeezing sensation that seemed focused in the pit of her stomach gave her a rush she was sure not even the most thrill-seeking of Muggles could achieve from their rollercoasters.

An instant later, a second crack brought the familiar aerial view of Hogsmeade. September evening sunlight filtered in lazy beams from behind the castle, breaking through rents in the clouds that revealed patches of hazy blue sky. Veering her broom to follow the path of the road, Tonks gradually slowed her speed so she could bask in the sun's warmth on her face as it reflected off the gates to the Hogwarts grounds.

Which, now she thought about it, shouldn't have been quite so visible. Where were the Dementors that had been sent from Azkaban to prowl the school environs for Sirius Black? In the distance, near the Quidditch pitch, over which the sky darkened as an evening thunderstorm rolled in, swirled a few dark, wraith-like shapes Tonks knew weren't low clouds. But another scan of the front gates revealed the perimeter of the grounds to be Dementor-free.

Not that she was complaining. 

Sybill Trelawney hadn't inspired Tonks to put much stock in Divination, but she couldn't help but think now that the gleaming golden gates were a good omen for an Auror cadet out to prove her worth.

During her descent, she also scanned the area for Hagrid; she'd contacted Professor Dumbledore for permission to question his Care of Magical Creatures teacher, and the headmaster had agreed, saying he would alert Hagrid of her impending arrival. She expected to see him waiting at the gates, but he wasn't there. Nor was he outside his cabin. And it wasn't down to her not being ace at Tracking, because Hagrid wasn't an easy person to miss.

Her eyes did a second pass as she got closer to the ground, and a faint bluish light caught her attention. There _was_ a person standing casually where she'd expected to see Hagrid. A person who would have been _very_ easy to miss. Much shorter than Hagrid, much thinner, dressed in a nondescript greyish jumper, leant against the gate post with one hand shoved deep into the pocket of his equally unremarkable trousers.

He straightened up and smiled at Tonks as she broke her speed and stretched her feet toward the ground, landing in a long skid that sent gravel flying.

"Wotcher," she greeted, stumbling a little as she dismounted her broomstick and saw that the bluish light came from a flame of magical fire flickering in the cupped hand not in his pocket. "You're not Hagrid."

The man's eyes, which up close she noted were as brilliant blue as the fire, twinkled at her as he moved to unlock the gate. 

_Good job, Tonks. Say something right off that makes people not take you seriously._

She wished she could be irritated with _him_ -- whoever he was -- for laughing at her, but there was something of Dumbledore in the amused glimmer. 

_Remember what Scrimgeour said about your sense of humour. It's a winning feature._

"Oh, but I am Hagrid," the man said in a slightly hoarse, but lilting voice. "I just look a fair bit smaller and younger when I've had a shave and a haircut."

Approaching the gate, Tonks swept him with her eyes and observed how the flame highlighted streaks of grey in the light brown hair that fell almost to his shoulders. Fine lines criss-crossed the corners of his eyes and mouth. _How much_ younger than Hagrid? 

"And it changes your voice and accent, as well?" _Not to mention that pretty impressive bit of wandless magic even a lot of fully qualified wizards couldn't pull off._ "What a fantastic trick." She wasn't sure whether she was being facetious about the non-existent magical voice alteration, or sincerely complimenting his spellwork.

He seemed to be laughing as he turned the key, but Tonks couldn't hear it over the creak of the gates as they swung open. 

"All right," he said, leaning his shoulder against the gate post again as he stood aside for her to pass through. "You've sussed me. I'm not Hagrid."

"Who are you, then?"

The gates shut, and he turned to extend his hand to her. "Remus Lupin. The new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor."

Tonks engaged in one of the fiercest duels of her life, battling her jaw's inclination to drop. How, in Merlin's name, could this very pale hand, which had such a smooth palm and long, thin fingers, possibly be connected with _that_ position? Magical fire and its Dementor staying powers aside, Defence Against the Dark Arts demanded a rather hardier constitution than this bloke appeared to posses. Really -- he looked like a very minor offensive spell might knock him off his feet. The frayed cuff of his shirt above his slender wrist, and above that the worn, shapeless jumper, didn't project an image of vigour; they definitely didn't tell the story of a wizard who'd made much success of his life before this job.

_Lupin_ -- a kind of flower she remembered her mother planting in the garden -- seemed a suitable name, though.

_Easy there, Tonks. You know better than anyone how deceiving appearances can be. That Gilderoy Lockhart last year. Everyone -- yes, even you -- thought he was so impressive with his books and his dashing good looks and flashy robes. Then it turned out all that was underneath was a fraud._

Anyway, people with green hair shouldn't throw stones.

"And you're Miss Tonks?"

Lupin's question startled her for two reasons: the first being a jolt of guilt that she'd got so engrossed with doing Aurorly things that she'd forgotten very basic good manners by not immediately introducing herself; the second, that _her name_ had come out of a stranger's mouth. 

Tonks' hand went limp in his. "How did you--?"

Again, Lupin smiled. Which apparently he did a lot, because the creases around his eyes and mouth deepened as he did so, and clearly were smile lines. He almost didn't need to answer for Tonks to feel at ease about him knowing who she was without her having said.

But he did answer: "The Headmaster told me you were coming to see Hagrid -- who, I am sorry to say, is a rather..._indisposed_."

"By indisposed you mean sloshed?"

"Quite." Lupin smiled. "He is, understandably, distressed about this unfortunate accident involving the Hippogriff. I was with him, trying to sober him up, when you contacted Dumbledore."

"I see." Tonks decided that there was something empathetic in Lupin's smile. A kindness that was rooted deeper than politeness or even a pleasant nature. There was real compassion. The gentle, almost careful, touch of his fingers wrapped around hers clenched the notion.

Except that she realised, with some dismay, that she'd been shaking his hand for far too long, and hastily pulled out of his grasp.

_Why would Dumbledore agree to let you question one of his staff, and then send someone else -- someone you don't even know -- to tell you Hagrid can't talk? Is he protecting Hagrid? Was Lupin really with Hagrid at the time? Or did Dumbledore choose him, specifically, to deal with her?_

Tearing her eyes from the steady gaze, she nodded toward Hagrid's cabin. "He's not sober enough to answer a few questions, then?"

"He might answer. Though I'm less certain of whether he might say anything relevant to the topic."

Tonks had been gritting her teeth as she wondered whether or not she ought to demand to be taken inside for a look around. Scrimgeour had only given her permission to question to determine probable cause, not to search, but this _was_ rather suspicious. But her jaw relaxed as a puff of laughter refused to be held back. Whatever this Lupin bloke lacked in physical stamina, he more than made up for with his ready humour and friendly nature. She hoped Dumbledore _hadn't_ sent him to throw her off a trail, because Lupin had a winning way, and she liked him. 

_Silly, Tonks! You haven't got time for a bloody social life. And why would a professor want to socialise with an Auror-in-training, anyway?_

"Is this about the Hippogriff?" Lupin asked. "Only I could, perhaps, answer your questions?"

Tonks considered her answer. "It's more about magical creatures in general." 

"As it so happens, magical creatures are rather a specialty of mine."

_Disarming_ -- that was the word for Lupin's smile. 

Even so, Tonks felt her guard go up. 

If the Defence professor had a genuine interest in magical creatures, then it made sense he might be friends with Hagrid -- yes, including the sort of friend who'd look after him when he was on a bender. But if that was the case, why would he be keen to help with her investigation, _except_ to throw her off? 

Though, if he _was_ trying to protect Hagrid, she'd know within a few minutes of talking to him. And if he _wasn't_, if she really was just being paranoid because she felt more than a little bit desperate to prove herself, well then -- she'd be in the castle, anyway, and could just pop up to the Headmaster's office to see about contacting Granger's and Weasley's parents for consent to question _them_. 

She'd nothing to lose by talking to Lupin. 

And really, with all these possibilities open to her, she _couldn't_ lose. 

"Thanks," she said. "That would be really helpful--"

She jumped as the door of Hagrid's cabin banged open suddenly, and the hairy giant of a man blundered out, doubled over, and retched into a flowerbed.

"We could go to my office," said Lupin with a wince, "where there's not..." His voice trailed away.

"Someone vomiting up their toenails?" Tonks supplied.

"Thank you." Lupin looked at her with a wry half-grin and arched eyebrows. "I couldn't think of a way to put it delicately." He gestured toward the castle with the hand that held the magical fire, eyes flickering up to the Dementors that had advanced from the Quidditch pitch. "Shall we, Auror Tonks?"

"I'm not a qualified Auror yet, Professor Lupin."

"As good as one," he said as they fell into step together on the lane, "if they're sending you out on investigations."

Tonks beamed at the compliment, which was mirrored in the sincerity of his eyes as he smiled down at her, and took back every negative thing she'd thought about him.

His shoulder brushed her arm as he added, in a softer, pleasantly rasping tone, "And please, call me Remus."

_Remus. That's a very nice name._

"And Tonks'll do just fine for me."

Quite unexpectedly, Remus' features sloped into a frown. "Then perhaps you ought to call me Lupin, if we're not on a first name basis."

"I'm not on a first name basis with anyone. Cos mine's that horrible."

"What is it?" Remus asked, laughter lacing his tone. 

"I just told you."

"Horrible Tonks?" He _hmm_ed as he rubbed his chin. "No, I don't think that suits you at all."

"Yeah? Only there's quite a lot of people -- my mum included -- who'd say Horrible Tonks definitely suits a green-haired person."

"Obviously there's quite a lot of people with very poor taste if they don't see how green is the _only_ colour to compliment a red, purple, and orange striped Mackintosh and red stars-spangled Wellingtons."

A hot flush raced upwards from her collar, and even hotter words leapt to her tongue -- but the defensive retort died instantly when she glanced up and saw Remus wasn't making fun of her outfit.

Quite the opposite, in fact, if his eyes going a darker shade of blue as they watched her, were any indication. 

And not just watching her face.

Oh, Merlin. Was he...checking her out? Granted, if Interpreting Male Body Language were part of the Auror training curriculum, she'd most probably be doing worse in it than she was in Stealth and Tracking. But paying _that_ close of attention to a girl's hair and clothes had all the earmarks of checking her out, didn't it? And there was no mistaking he was flirting.

"It was raining in London."

Her mouth had spoken without her brain's permission, and she didn't even realise it had till Remus ducked his head and sniggered.

"Yes, the rain gear had given me that impression." 

_Bloody hell, Tonks, pull yourself together! You're twenty years old, nearly an Auror, for Merlin's sake -- not a silly schoolgirl. Blokes check girls out. It's what they do. It doesn't mean anything, except that they're blokes. So stop being a prat!_

But she caught her toe on the gravel walk and stumbled. 

Almost reflexively, Remus' hand caught her elbow, steadying her with a grip so much firmer and surer than his handshake had been, though with no less gentleness. Somehow he did it without drawing any real attention to the fact that she'd tripped, without the _whoops_ or _careful there, Tonks_ or any number of borderline insulting comments people typically made about her clumsiness. The touch drove the violent flush from her face, and though her heart was still beating too quickly, it wasn't racing wildly from embarrassment.

When he released her a moment later, she said, "You've only just met me, Remus. How do you know I'm not the sort of green-haired person who wears rain gear just because I like my Mac and Wellies?"

Chuckling, he shoved his hands deep into his trouser pockets. "This is very true. And considering you're an Auror--"

"Auror in training."

"--and considering all the Aurors I've ever known have quite the eccentric streak, it's entirely possible your decision to don a raincoat and boots rests entirely independently of the weather."

Their light banter (which Tonks refused to call flirtation, since she'd never engaged in any that hadn't been totally awkward, and joking with Remus was so very easy) gave way to small talk about what Aurors he knew. She was surprised to learn he'd been a year ahead of Kingsley in school, and in the same house, and knew him quite well.

_Memo to me -- pay closer attention to people's features when you meet them. You ought to have noticed before Remus dated himself that his face is a lot younger than the grey hair and lines say at first glance._

She made Remus laugh by asking whether Kingsley's near obsessive compulsion about the state of his robes counted as an eccentricity. To which he responded that he hoped she didn't expect him to pick apart the multitude of Alastor Moody's eccentricities. She would've said yes, she did, but she was too startled that he actually _knew_ Mad-Eye, not just knew of him. How? But Remus only gave a cryptic sort of smile as he muttered the words to put out the magical fire. Opening the great front door of the castle and standing aside to let her pass through first, he asked if Aurors, fully qualified and cadets, didn't like a good mystery.

At which point the tone of the conversation shifted to one of tender reverence when he told her that at one time he'd been very close friends with Frank and Alice Longbottom, as well. Tonks felt a right prat again when she hadn't anything to say but _oh_. Remus didn't seem to expect anything else though, and quite cheerfully went on to talk about their son, Neville, who was his student.

Which led to another horrifying moment of self-doubt and self-recrimination after a sudden realisation made Tonks cry, "Wow! You teach _Harry Potter_!" 

Not only that, but she actually made every last trace of Remus' smile vanish by wondering aloud whether it shouldn't be Harry teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, seeing as he'd not even been out of nappies when he'd vanquished He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Neither spoke much during the remainder of their walk up the spiral staircase to his office, so Tonks assumed she must have insulted him. Part of her ached with regret at having put off a bloke who'd been so entertaining during their walk -- not to mention a pretty charming flirt, even if he didn't mean it. The greater part of her didn't feel sorry at all, except that it might negatively affect their interview, because for all his charm, he apparently knew quite a few people he should have had better explanations -- _any_ explanations -- for knowing. Which, again, could help with her Snidget case. 

Assuming she could figure out the right thing to say to soothe that bruised male ego. 

Luckily, Remus' office itself provided ample scope for comment. Somehow it didn't exactly seem complimentary, even if she meant it that way, to tell him she thought the careless clutter suited his tatty clothes, unkempt hair, and easy manners. Could she joke about organised chaos? A method to his madness?

There was no other word but _mad_ for the thing she lay eyes on when she studied his desk. 

In a tank perched rather precariously at the corner -- atop a parchment that dangled off the edge of the desk and unrolled for several yards across the rug -- a green, horned creature pressed long fingers to the glass as it bared its green teeth.

A Grindylow. 

A water demon. 

_A Dark Creature._

And it wasn't the only one in the room. 

A bookcase held another aquarium, full of slimy pond water with a few lily pads floating on top. Squinting through the murk, Tonks made out a vaguely monkey-like form with webbed hands, which she remembered from a textbook she'd read ages ago was called a Kappa.

In the corner, a bird cage housed a number of Red Caps, who skulked behind rocks, clutching sticks, waiting to bludgeon anything that entered their territory.

And a repetitive thumping sound drew her gaze to a battered old briefcase beside a coat rack. 

"Have you got a--?"

"A Boggart in my briefcase?" Remus finished for her, smiling as pleasantly as if she'd inquired after some perfectly mundane householdy object, and as if her earlier verbal misstep hadn't occurred. "I never leave home without one. May I take your coat?"

Even as her body tensed, on the alert about this strange man who kept on leaving her utterly without words, Tonks found herself handing him her bag, then turning and shrugging her arms out of her sleeves as he helped her out of her Mac. In light of the way he'd held doors for her, and now this -- which she'd barely ever had a bloke do on a date, much less when she was on the job -- she was half-tempted to ask whether he meant this to be a date, or if he played the gentleman to every witch who talked to him about his Boggart.

_Bloody hell! Why are you thinking about this man and dates, together?_

Part of her said she ought to be insulted that he was drawing so much attention to her being female; it meant he wasn't thinking of her as an Auror, trainee or otherwise. Yet her mum, for all her other failures, had ingrained old-fashioned manners too thoroughly into Tonks for her to mind these noble little gestures. Remus was telling her to take a seat now, as he carefully hung her belongings on an empty peg beside his own tatty robes, and then he asked if she fancied a cup of tea. It made her feel like a lady, and that was a nice change.

Before she could take him up on the offer of either chair or tea, Remus had sprung across the office to her, gracefully dodging a stack of dusty books as he pointed his wand to clear a chair of a number of rolls of parchment.

"I'm afraid I only have bags," he said, pushing his fringe out of his eyes as he gave her an apologetic look.

"Who's got time to sift leaves?" Tonks flashed a grin as she took the seat, and felt a little flutter inside as the sheepish expression gave way to a lopsided grin. There was definitely a great deal of the boy about him.

However, it lasted only a moment before his brows sloped and knit together, and he glanced about distractedly. 

"Can I help you find something?" Tonks asked, gripping the arms of her chair to get up.

"_Accio_ Kettle," said Remus, and the missing utensil rustled out from beneath a stack of magazines and newspapers. 

Settling back in the chair, Tonks watched him fill and boil the kettle. He moved deftly, reminding her of her mother's poise in the kitchen. Just who was this Remus Lupin? He looked so thin and ill, yet walked with a spring in his step and kept Dementors at bay with a bit of wandless magic he made look so easy. His light brown hair, peppered with grey, and those lines on his face spoke of stress, but he seemed never to stop smiling, or to have to trawl very far back in his mind for a dry quip. She'd amused herself with her slight criticism of his office, which spoke of the stereotypical scatty professor, but since he'd immediately followed her gaze to the suitcase with the Boggart, she got the feeling he was as organised and thorough and possibly, contrary to her initial assessment of him, as _effective_ a teacher as Professor McGonagall. 

Clearing her throat, she said, "I never had a DADA professor who taught Dark Creatures so...hands-on."

Remus smiled over his shoulder he poured the tea. "My students say the same -- with the exception of Gilderoy Lockhart, who doesn't count because he hasn't the slightest idea how to be rid of Cornish Pixies. Sugar? I'm afraid I haven't any milk. Mrs. Norris, I think, gets in here sometimes and drinks it."

"Greedy beast," said Tonks. "Just a teensy bit of sugar, thanks. Lockhart only counts as a hands-on professor because _he_ was the thing the girls wanted to get their hands on."

Sniggering, Remus stepped around the desk and handed her a sturdy mug with a very masculine bold brown stripe round the rim and a chipped handle. He leant on the desk, next to the Grindylow tank, and sipped from a matching mug with a chipped lip.

"I suspect _your_ professors couldn't have been as remiss as my most recent predecessors," he said, eyes holding hers intently, with an expression Tonks couldn't put a name to. "No one's been accepted into the programme in two years. You'd have been the last, wouldn't you?"

Was it an admiring look? It was so intense, so searching, that she couldn't meet it any longer. She glanced down at her orange fingernail picking at the chip in her cup. "Squeaked through."

Remus' foot slid a few inches forward to nudge hers. "You're being modest."

His gaze drew hers. 

"No." Tonks took a drink. "Hard on myself."

For a long moment she stared into his unblinking blue eyes, until they were lit by a flash in the window. They both turned as thunder rumbled, faintly rattling the windowpane.

Tea in hand, Remus pushed off the desk and paced to peer out at the darkening sky.

"There are far worse enemies to look out for these days," he said, "without us becoming our own worst ones." 

Tonks could only assume he meant the Dementors, though something about the stiff set of his jaw as he drank his tea, and the way his fingers flexed, practically digging into the sill, said otherwise. It made her spine go rigid. She opened her mouth to ask whether Defence professors knew something Magical Law Enforcement didn't -- but then he turned back to her, smiling again, and sat in the creaky chair behind his desk.

"I'd be very proud of my work," he said, "if my tutelage helped someone qualify for the Auror programme."

Though thrown a little off-balance by this shift from grim to congenial, Tonks decided she'd a better chance of gaining control of the conversation if she indulged his current mood. "What if they wanted to work for the Magical Creatures department?"

Remus grinned. "I'd be proud of my work in that case, as well." A dimple appeared in his brow as his gaze drifted almost imperceptibly from hers. "Unless they wound up working for the Werewolf Capture Unit. Because I don't ascribe to the philosophy of preaching fear."

It seemed a very odd, almost non sequitur, thing to say, and for a moment Tonks hadn't any idea what sort of response would be appropriate. Well -- she had a pretty good idea it wouldn't do to debate the finer points of how on earth the Wizarding world was supposed to deal with werewolves. Again, she glanced around the office for a clue about where to take the conversation.

_Magical creatures, you daft idiot!_

She burnt her tongue as she gulped too much tea. "Where did you get them all?"

"My hands-on learning material?" Remus grinned. "I take a very hands-on approach to that, as well."

Tonks' teacup nearly slipped from her hands as she lost this second duel with her dropping jaw. "You went to Japan and got a Kappa from a lake?"

Leaning back in his chair, Remus waved his hand airily. "It's not quite so risky as the textbooks make it out to be, when you've cast a couple of stunners before wading in."

"And I presume you went prowling around some Scottish castle dungeons in the dead of night for the Red Caps?"

"Last Saturday night, in fact."

So much for not having the constitution for the Defence position. 

Of course, he _did_ look like he could've used Saturday night's sleep more than a teaching illustration.

But you couldn't fault a man for dedication, could you? Not when you were taking on extra work yourself. 

"You need a girlfriend, mate," Tonks heard herself say.

_Oh. Bloody. Buggering. Hell._

Remus was chuckling quietly, but Tonks sank down in her chair and stared into her teacup in mortification. _Why_ had she said that about girlfriends? Not only because it was absolutely hypocritical, when she'd got annoyed at Kingsley for tweaking her personal life, but because Remus was simply too charming to be single.

Frankly, he was a bit _old_ to be single. Probably he was married, and had a cottage full of kids. It would explain how he had this good job, and yet dressed so shabbily, if he'd a family to provide for. And now she'd insulted the way he did that job.

Oh, Merlin. 

_Go on, then, Tonks. Open the Red Cap cage and let them have a go at you. It would be lots better than sitting here digging your own grave._

"Moonlight Red Cap hunts are too romantic to waste on oneself, then?" Remus asked. "I'll take you with me to return them, if you're interested."

It was the worst moment Tonks could have chosen to raise her mug to her mouth. Had he just...? Was he asking her...? She whipped her head up to check his left hand for a ring.

None. 

Not that that meant anything one way or the other. Her own fingers felt sweaty, slack. 

_Was he asking her to go out with him? _

No, and you certainly don't want him to be asking you out when you're on the job. He's just getting his own back at you after you tweaked him about his social life.

Before she realised that the cup had begun to slip from her hands, tea doused her lap.

Remus stood. "Are you burnt?"

"Just wet." Fortunately she'd got on black trousers, and wouldn't have to worry about simultaneous drying and stain removal spellwork. She arched an eyebrow at him as she waved her wand. "This is why a Mac's all-weather wear. I'm dead clumsy."

"I see," said Remus, smothering a grin. He started to sit, but hesitated. "Could I get you more tea?"

Tonks shook her head and placed her empty cup on the desk. "I'm fine, thanks." They really needed to get down to business. "When you've finished teaching about them, you release the creatures to their natural habitats, then?"

"Of course," said Remus, resuming his seat, a hint of a question in his voice.

"Only there's a black market for Dark Creatures, isn't there?"

Tonks held her breath for his reaction to her accusation, and Remus met her eyes with mischief glimmering in his. 

"You've found me out, Tonks. I've made millions posing as a mild-mannered professor by day, whilst moonlighting in the Dark Creature trade." He got up to clear away the tea things. "And now I've let that slip, you'll surely want to spend a Saturday night in some dark dungeon with me." He pointed a finger at her, in a playful warning gesture. "But I assure you, if you're only after my money--"

He fell silent as the glow extinguished from his eyes, and a flash of lightning outside cast his lined features into relief. 

"I had not realised," he said in low tones that rumbled with the thunder, taking his seat rigidly, "that our chat had become an interrogation."

"Hadn't you? I mean you _did_ offer to assist my investigation."

"So I did. But I wasn't counting on being _accused_ of anything. If that's the case, then I'm afraid I'd rather remain silent unless you've got a warrant for an official inquisition."

Tonks wasn't accusing him of anything, but she _was_ desperate to keep control of this and get what she could out of him. He hadn't earned her sympathy by sounding so damned _agreeable_ whilst he refused to cooperate.

"I'll get one and come back," she replied. "It'll be easy, considering the Hagrid investigation, to convince the Board of Governors that Dark Creatures in the Defence classroom are just as dangerous."

Remus gave her a long, measured look that made Tonks brace herself for being asked to leave. 

But another lightning crash revealed something like a twinkle in his eyes, and then he leant back in his chair, clasping his fingers together on his desk. "What do you want to know?"

Hardly believing in her success, Tonks wiggled a bit in her chair as she fought to contain a burst of giddiness. "First off, I'm not accusing you of anything," she said. It wasn't entirely true; the way he'd suddenly clammed up struck her as highly suspicious, if not in relation to the Snidget case, then some other activity. "It was Hagrid I came to see, if you remember?"

Remus wrinkled his nose. "Vividly."

"If you -- he, I mean -- _were_ to want to buy, or dispose of, illegal creatures, he'd know where, wouldn't he?"

Remus shrugged. 

"Knockturn Alley would be the place to go, right?" Tonks asked.

"Depends on the sort of creatures."

"Birds."

"By birds I take it you don't mean your run of the mill kind?"

"The run of the mill kind Magical Law Enforcement are interested in."

Remus slowly uncrossed his legs, then rose from his chair. His eyes darkened as he stepped around the desk and peered down at her.

Tonks' pulse quickened. He knew _exactly_ what she was talking about. Of course he did -- how many missing birds had graced the _Prophet_ pages in the past few weeks? Even if they did get overshadowed by the Sirius Sodding Black escape. 

"You think Hagrid's got the Snidgets from the Sheringham Sanctuary?"

Tonks squirmed, guilt rising again as it had when Kingsley asked it earlier. "I think he's a likely person for some unscrupulous thief to approach."

When she saw Remus' jaw tighten, Tonks leapt up from her chair. "Remus. You can't blame me for thinking he might be a source. The bloke's in serious trouble for bringing a bleeding _Hippogriff_ onto school grounds, and I heard rumours that once he hatched a baby dragon."

"And raised werewolf cubs under his bed, as well."

"There's no such thing as werewolf cubs!"

Remus' mouth suddenly broke into a grin. "See? Your Defence professors weren't _that_ bad." 

Tonks' fingers twitched with an urge to wipe that smirk off the git's face with a good Bat Bogey Hex. Balling her hands into fists at her sides, she said, "All I'm asking is, why wouldn't Hagrid be tempted by Snidgets, as well? A nice, safe, interesting creature to give him a low profile after this Hippogriff fiasco."

She expected Remus to come back with an immediate rejoinder. When he didn't, but instead leant against his desk with a thoughtful expression -- as though he might actually _agree_ with her point -- it threw her even more off-balance than if he hadn't. 

Was he hiding anything or not? 

Tonks took a deep breath, then said, "I've got a lead. Sort of. A teensy one. Madam Dolittle at the Magical Menagerie was asked about Snidgets by a shady, stinky bloke."

Remus looked at her with amusement. "So that eliminates all the hags in Knockturn Alley, but leaves everyone else."

"She also gave me the names of two students who might have seen him, and might give me more to go on."

"No one would talk, you know, in Knockturn Alley. They're suspicious of outsiders."

"I'm ace at Concealment and Disguise--"

"No," said Remus shaking his head. "If you want to find out anything in Knockturn Alley, you've got to be one of them -- or be seen with someone who's trusted down there."

Tonks folded her arms across her chest. "Are you offering to introduce me to someone who is?"

He stepped toward her. "At risk of putting myself in a suspicious light, I'm admitting to you that mine isn't an unfamiliar face with a number of Knockturn Alley denizens."

Her heart hung suspended in her chest. "And you'll take me there?"

"I'm afraid I can't be spared here for long enough to go to London with you."

"But..." Couldn't be spared from Hogwarts? Not even after classes? Or on the weekends? He'd gone to bloody _Scotland_ last Saturday night! "But you're--"

Remus laid a hand on her shoulder and smiled. "I can, however, take you someplace equally disreputable, and frequented by some of the more important figures you'd want to have seen you before you move on to investigate the Dark Creature black market."

Breathlessly, she asked, "Where's that?"

He spread his free hand wide and grinned. "Why, The Hog's Head Inn."

Tonks was pretty sure she ought to have been questioning whether Remus' proposal were really a good one, and why he was so keen on being her guide into the underbelly of the Wizarding world. But the office, which suddenly seemed very close and quiet and warm, and the rhythmic patter of rain against the window, had a hypnotic effect. The weight of his hand rested pleasantly on her shoulder, and the kindness in his eyes begged her to trust him.

"Well then, Remus," she heard herself say, "it's a date."

Smile widening, he squeezed her shoulder. 

Then, as his hand released her, the world seemed to start moving once more. Tonks let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding, and was dizzied by the scuttling and tapping sounds of Remus' creatures in their cages, and of the ticking of a clock on the wall. She wished for his touch to steady her again, then immediately questioned what on earth she'd done. But there was no going back now. Before she could give the matter a second thought, they'd compared their diaries, marked down a time they could meet, and Remus had helped her into her Mackintosh and seen her to the door.

And Tonks found herself lingering over their goodbye. 

Investigation classes had never really covered how to end an interview. Especially not ones where you'd joked about your next meeting being a date. Or ones where your interviewee leant against the door jamb, smiling at you through his fringe, almost as if _this_ had been one. 

"Thanks for your time, Remus," she said, shaking his hand. "It was nice meeting with you, and chatting..." 

_Chatting? Way to keep it professional, Tonks._

Dropping his long-fingered hand, she went on, brusquely, "You've been very helpful, and I look forward to working with you again. Night, then."

She started to go, but Remus called to her. Turning back, she saw him tugging at the back of his hair. "If next time's a date," he said in that low, slightly raspy tone, "aren't you going to tell me your name?"

Telling herself it was motivated purely by the desire to solve this case, Tonks didn't bother to squelch an impulsive bit of flirtation. Grinning, she turned away, then looked back over her shoulder to say, "Don't you professor types like a good mystery?"

Somehow, she doubted that the lopsided grin she earned before Remus retreated to his office meant she'd had much to do with professionalism at all.

* * *

_**A/N: Thanks to all who read and reviewed the previous chapter! I'm really pleased you like this POA setting for R/T and hope you continue to enjoy the way the story unfolds. Everyone who tells me what they think will get to have tea with Professor Lupin in his office -- and he'll meet you at the Hogwarts front gates with magical fire in his hand.**_


	3. Unravelled Threads

**3. Unravelled Threads**

As if there had been no break in their conversation, that same lopsided grin stretched across Remus' face when he opened his office door to her the following night.

"You were being hard on yourself when you said you're merely ace at Concealment and Disguise." His eyes swept her as he stepped aside to let her enter.

"Obviously not as good as I thought," Tonks returned, brushing past him quickly in the hope of hiding how furiously she was blushing under his intense -- and flirty -- gaze. "How'd you recognise me?"

Aside from doing her hair in short, tightly coiled blue curls, she'd played a lot with her height and facial structure, so that she wouldn't have to change a great deal for her Hog's Head look.

"Apart from the _wotcher_, you mean?" Remus asked, shutting the door. 

"Oh. I--" 

Tonks' flush deepened as she realised that before today, he'd only heard her say _wotcher_ once; if he remembered how she'd greeted him the very first time they met, he must have..._noticed_ her. No, he couldn't have -- it was that he was a professor, and he certainly wasn't having Dumbledore or McGonagall or Snape pass him in the corridor and say _wotcher_. 

"Your eyes," Remus said.

"My eyes?" Tonks' insides were doing very strange things, bringing to mind last night's conversation with Kingsley. He'd asked if she fancied Remus, and she'd given him a vehement _no_. The answer was still no. Remus was just--

He _wasn't_ teasing, Tonks found when she turned and saw him looking at her, though still with twinkling eyes, his smile was gentle. 

"They're very striking," he said softly, gazing steadily at her eyes as he stepped nearer to her, as though for a closer look. "Black is rather uncommon."

"It's my real colour."

"A very lovely real colour."

He was stood so close now that she could feel his warm breath on her face, and she wondered if she'd blinked, because he hadn't. A shiver coursed down her spine.

_Stop this, Tonks. Stop it right now. You've got a job to do._

She stepped back from him, and blinked. His steady gaze had no effect on her. 

Mostly because he'd broken it, and the intense personal interest was replaced with that teasing look. 

"Is either green or blue your real hair colour?" he asked.

Tonks pulled a face at the thought of her natural dull brown, which she loathed as much as her name. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Remus quirked an eyebrow. "The plot thickens."

"It's got a lot thinner, actually." Tonks flopped down in the chair she'd sat in last night. 

With a questioning frown, Remus crossed the room, dodging stacks of clutter, to lean against his desk. 

Dragging a hand through her hair, tangling her fingers in her curls, Tonks said, "I just spoke with Granger and Weasley. They never noticed anyone suspicious in the Magical Menagerie on the thirty-first of August."

"So you've no more information about the fellow who approached Madam Dolittle than she gave." He smiled encouragingly when Tonks shook her head. "You've still got Hagrid to speak with. He might have heard something. And you never know what information you'll pick up in the Hog's Head."

"You'll still take me?"

"Absolutely." Grinning, he indicated the heavily patched robes he was wearing. "I've dressed for the occasion." His smile fell, and Tonks watched with some confusion as his Adam's apple bobbed hard, and for the first time she saw him look self-conscious. "Though, erm...not to criticise your Appearance Charm skills, but...blue curls, while very fetching on you, don't precisely look like the typical Hog's Head clientele."

Tonks couldn't resist a smirk. "I haven't quite finished with my disguise. And I think you'll find it difficult to criticise my Appearance Charm skills, since I don't do them."

_Merlin's beard, Tonks, you're such a show-off._

If only morphing didn't require so much concentration, she'd have laughed at the look on Remus' face when she scrunched up hers and lengthened the blue curls to a waist-length mane of matted dirty blonde hair.

"You're a--"

"Metamorphmagus, yeah." She conjured a hand mirror. "What looks more hag-like, do you think? Hazel eyes, or grey?" She did one of each, and looked over the top of the mirror at Remus.

"Why not leave them like that?" Remus suggested, "Mismatched?"

"Oh, brilliant!" 

Tonks was delighted not so much by the idea as by the way he, having recovered from his initial surprise to be interacting with one of the rarest beings in the magical world, watched her. He was obviously fascinated, yet his expression contained nothing of the gawkiness other people's always had. She reckoned it must have something to do with him being a professor, and being used to seeing strange things with relative detachment.

But there was something more there, as well; something like awe, though not quite. She got the feeling that when Remus looked at her shifting her face, he wasn't seeing _what_ she was, but _who_ she was. Which hardly seemed possible, when they'd known each other for all of a day. 

She inspected her reflection. Yes -- the hazel and grey eyes made her suitably creepy, and making her skin a little more leathery and a little more yellow completed the hag look, yet...

Part of her still felt unsure about the disguise. 

Glancing up at Remus, she asked, "Are you sure you won't be disturbed?"

"Tonks," he said, "I keep a Red Cap, a Grindylow, a Kappa, and a Boggart in my office. I'm more than reasonably certain I can sit across from a hag with mismatched eyes and not be disturbed."

Looking into the mirror again as she stood, Tonks gave a short puff of a laugh, to brush aside a niggling thought that it wasn't the answer she'd wanted. "True."

"And besides..." He gently nudged her foot with his.

Tonks inhaled sharply. It was the second time he'd done that, and the second time she'd looked up at him after he did, and thought he was adorable, like a half-shy teenager.

_What was that you said to Kingsley at lunch about not fancying Remus?_

He went on in his low murmur, foot still resting against hers in a vaguely intimate way, "We established just a moment ago that your real eyes are lovely. I don't think I could really see anything but those when I look at you."

_Oh God..._ Tonks felt her robes brush against his as her body, with a distinct light-headed, weak-kneed sensation she'd never experienced before in similar situations, swayed toward him. She had a ridiculous urge to reach up and push that soft-looking light brown fringe back from his forehead, and kiss his cheek.

His gently smiling mouth seemed an appealing option, as well. Were his lips smooth, and careful, like his hands?

The mirror she was still holding suddenly caught the light -- and Tonks' attention. Of all the ridiculous...She was morphed as a _hag_ for Merlin's sake! A beaky-nosed, pointy-chinned, jaundiced _crone_. Because she was supposed to be going undercover to catch a Snidgetnapper. Who could be at the Hog's Head in _right this second_, while she was having stupid fantasies about kissing a man who'd laid down a line about her eyes. 

_A killer line._

But still a line. Hadn't Kingsley told her just a few hours ago, when she'd asked what Remus had been like in school, that there'd always been at least a dozen girls with crushes on him, because he was so very sweet and charming, but he never went out with any of them for longer than a month?

She didn't have a month for this case. 

"What about my teeth?" she asked, turning away from him. "Should I morph one away, or just do a couple of snaggle ones?"

In the mirror, she saw Remus shrug. "You don't miss a detail, do you?"

Tonks winced as her front teeth shifted to leave a gap in between, and her bottom teeth crowded together. "That's what they teach us in Concealment and Disguise," she said with a slight lisp.

"Yes. I suppose it is."

The silence was awkward as she transfigured her clothes into her a robe of coarse, greyish-brown fabric with frayed hems and a moth-eaten woollen shawl. Tonks couldn't help but think that somehow, she'd made things wrong between them.

_But you didn't do anything! _

Maybe it was what you didn't do.

She vanished the conjured mirror and turned to face Remus. "Do I look like the sort of dodgy person who'd be trusted in Knockturn Alley?"

"You will after you've been seen having a drink with me at the Hog's Head," he said, a slight hint of something flirty in his voice, though Tonks keenly felt how he hadn't picked up their joke about this being a date. He plucked his cloak off the tree, then opened the door and stood aside for her to pass through. "Shall we, Madam?"

Tonks raised her eyebrows at him as she stepped out into the corridor. "If you call me _Madam_ in the Hog's Head, I'll never get any underworld credibility."

"This raises an important point," Remus said, waving his wand to lock the door behind him as a few long strides caught him up to her. "I can't call you Tonks in the Hog's Head."

She gave a snort of laughter. "If you think for a second you're going to get my name out of me that easily--"

"I don't, not even for half a second. But it was worth a shot." 

Chuckling, Tonks glanced up at him and was pleased to find him grinning down at her. Relief that their easy rapport seemed to have returned brought a spring into her step. Which she immediately forced back, because hags weren't exactly the bouncy type.

"You know it _is_ rather strange," said Remus as they descended the main staircase, "to know you're a Metamorphmagus -- to have seen you change your face -- when I don't even know your Christian name."

"That's because it's not a very Christian thing to name a baby girl." Tonks tugged at the shapeless garment, too short at the wrists and ankles of the taller frame she'd morphed. It added to the whole dodgy effect, for sure, but would it drive her mental?

"Does that mean it's not a girl's name?"

"No, actually, it's ridiculously girly. Emphasis on ridiculous."

"Interesting." Remus darted his eyes sidelong at her. "Only I've got a guess, and it's very girly."

"Have you?"

"Mm."

"Well?"

"You want me to tell you what I think your name is, yet you won't tell me what it actually is?"

Stepping onto the marble floor, she whirled to face him, hands flying to her hips. "You said yourself, you've got to call me something besides Tonks when we're at the Hog's Head."

For a moment he stared at her with pursed lips, and a crinkled forehead, clearly looking as if she'd filed him. Shoulders sloping as he heaved a dramatic sigh, he descended the last stair. "I think you could be an Elphine."

Stopping dead in her tracks, Tonks' jaw dropped.

"That's not your name, is it?" Remus asked, actually looking afraid that it was. "Or have I appalled you?"

"No, you haven't, and Elphine's not it." Tonks shook her head as they resumed their walk. "Though actually I wouldn't mind if it were."

"Why look as if I'd hit you with a Stunner, then?"

For a moment, Tonks hesitated. He watched her very intently as he opened the front door for her. She swore that man could read minds. Legilimens?

_What are you waiting for? Remus is clever, but no one's clever enough to add 'Elphine' to 'close' and get a sum total of 'Nymphadora'!_

"Because it's bloody _close_!" she cried. 

Squinting as she stepped out into the hazy early evening sunlight that filtered wanly through mounting storm clouds, she told herself that Remus' mouth was not twitching because he had a clue about how that could be close to her name.

_He won't jump from elves to nymphs...They're quite removed from each other..._

"Same idea my mum was going for. Just less..._Black_." 

Now it was Remus who stopped mid-stride, as the great doors thundered shut behind him. 

Tonks turned to face him. "What?"

"_Tonks_," said Remus, starting toward her again. "I knew your surname sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. Your mother's Andromeda Black? And she married a fellow called Tonks?"

"Yeah, my mum's Andromeda...Dad's Ted Tonks."

"Ted, that's right." 

"Why, did you go to school with them?"

"Now, now," Remus said, drawing out the words with a touch of feigned annoyance, "I know I'm a bit grey, but do I look old enough to have attended school with your parents?"

Tonks spread her hands wide. "Well, how else would you know them?"

"I don't know them. I only know _of_ them. Because..." 

He glanced around upward, scanning the clouds with his keen eyes. Cupping his fingers, he raised his hand to his mouth, muttered indistinguishable words, and the bluish fire sparked to life in his palm. His eyes continued to watch the sky as they walked on, fire held slightly out in front of him.

Again Tonks was impressed, but she wondered why he took preventative action against Dementors. Not that she was dying for one to swoop down on them. But the most common defence was to conjure a Patronus if one came.

Maybe he had trouble with the strong, happy memory, once the Dementors were upon him? Surely not. He was so cheerful. 

Then again, he wasn't the most robust of men. 

Abruptly, Remus picked up his abandoned train of thought. "One of my schoolmates was your mother's cousin."

Catching her toe on a loose stone in the path, Tonks stumbled in what she felt sure must be the exact spot she had yesterday. As it had been then, Remus' hand was instantly supporting her by the elbow. This time, the touch brought neither balance nor comfort, but instead made her reel with the thought it somehow physically connected with a horrible part of herself which she had never before acknowledged. She pulled away from him, though the ground felt unsteady beneath her feet.

"Sirius Black," she said flatly.

"How--?"

She quickly relayed to him what Kingsley had told her at lunch -- which hadn't been much, except that he was well-liked, popular even, and very thick with Harry Potter's father and the convicted murder of twelve Muggles, Sirius Black.

"I never met him," Tonks said. "I just remember Mum going mad one night and doing _Incendios_ on a lot of photographs she'd torn out of her old albums, and Dad telling me her cousin had done terrible things like Mum's sister, but not to worry because they would all be locked up in Azkaban forever."

Remus gave a short, sarcastic laugh. "_Forever._" 

They didn't speak anymore as they passed through the Hogwarts gates, and silence, thick and heavy with secrets, pursued them down the road that led to the village of Hogsmeade.

Tonks found herself leaving a wider gap between them as she walked beside Remus. Her brain said that it was because of his connection with the escaped convict; because even if he'd not been directly involved, Remus had to have known all along that his mate had it within him to murder. Her conscience told her not to be a fool.

_That's over-simplifying, Tonks, and you know it. Don't pass judgment just because you're afraid to admit to the real reason: that you want to stay detached from Black, and your whole sodding family, as you've always been._

Or as she'd always tried to be. Applying for the Auror programme, and undergoing the rigorous screening processes and background checks, had thrown her heritage in her face. Mad-Eye Moody had trusted her, though, and persuaded Amelia Bones, and eventually Scrimgeour, that they'd be idiots not to take her. Since Black's unprecedented escape from Azkaban, she'd been afraid that side of her family tree would trip her up after two years of the hardest work she'd ever done, especially now that Mad-Eye had retired.

Hence this extra-curricular sleuthing...

The nudge of Remus' arm against hers, and his soft, teasing tones, pushed her out of her dark introspection. 

"If you like the name Elphine so much," he said, "you ought to have let me believe I'd guessed correctly." He brushed against her again, and leant his head conspiratorially toward hers. "Because you won't be rid of me, you know, 'til I've found out the truth."

"Will I be rid of you if you do find it out?" Tonks asked, in spite of the flags of suspicion about Remus raised by the talk of Black. Because, as confusing and unnerving as he'd repeatedly been, she really had enjoyed their two encounters. It wasn't every day she met a person who treated her like Tonks whether she had green hair or blue, or wore a hag's face; and if Remus was one of those people, then he would definitely be worth the effort of getting to know him better.

So long as he turned out to be on the up and up.

Could a man with a lopsided grin _not_ be on the up and up?

_Please, Merlin...Don't let me be wrong about him...Don't let me be stupid..._

"That depends," Remus said.

"On?"

He shoved his hands into his pockets as he looked sideways at her. "On whether you change your mind about a Saturday night fending off Red Caps in a dungeon."

_Is he asking you to go out with him?_ Tonks wondered as she had the first time he'd made that joking offer. _It has to be a joke, hasn't it?_

"I never said no before," she said. 

"You never said yes, either."

"Because you never really asked me!"

_There. That's the way to get to the bottom of this mystery, Tonks. Well done._

Except that Remus merely chuckled. 

He might not have said the word _date_, but as confusing and ridiculously male as he was being, Tonks felt like she was on one. 

A third year Hogsmeade date, that was.

* * *

Entering the Hog's Head Inn, disguised as a hag, Tonks couldn't help but let out a cackle at the memory of the last time she'd come here with a false identity.

"What?" Remus asked as they wove their way through the haphazardly arranged tables toward the opposite side of the bar, facing the front door.

"Nothing."

He raised an eyebrow. "Generally people don't laugh at nothing unless they've gone mad."

"Or have been hit with _Rictusempra_."

"Ah, but Tickling Charms are something. So you lose, and I win, and you've got to tell me the something that's tickled you."

"Not fair!" Tonks protested as she kicked out a barstool with her foot and plopped down onto it. "If you want to play games, you've got to tell me the rules first."

Remus smiled pleasantly. "Now where's the fun in that?"

"_Fine_," said Tonks heavily, slumping onto her elbows on the bar. "I'll tell you -- but only because it's a good story, not because you beat me at some nonexistent game by being a sodding little cheat."

He chuckled appreciatively, and continued to do so as she told him of her ill-fated fourth-year Hogsmeade weekend when she'd morphed into her mother so she could find out what all the fuss was about Ogden's Old Firewhisky that had degenerated from a booze tasting to a proper drinking contest with tavern regulars, which resulted in her passing out, back teeth floating, and waking up in the Hospital Wing to the mother of all hangovers, a month's worth of detentions, and a ban from all future Hogsmeade weekends.

Not to mention an earful from her mother -- which had been the worst punishment of all.

"Good work, Elphine," said Remus, giving her a little round of applause. "I was known as a bit of a prankster myself, in my time, but I never got banned from Hogsmeade weekends."

"Does that just mean you were good enough not to get caught?"

Remus tried to smother a snigger behind his hand, but failed miserably. 

"Yes," Tonks answered for him, and pinched his side, making him squirm on the barstool. _Ticklish_, she noted, then quickly said, "Git. And you probably haven't got any sympathy for a poor girl who never got to have a proper Hogsmeade date, like every other girl that's gone to Hogwarts...ever."

"Not really," he said, turning sideways to lean his elbow on the prop his chin on his hand and look at her. "But only because I like the idea of being your first."

Hoping the jaundiced complexion didn't allow Remus to see how red she felt her face must be, Tonks narrowed her mismatched eyes and glared over the hooked nose at him. "You're a right tart, Professor Lupin, flirting with that pretty green haired witch yesterday, and a decrepit old crone like me today."

Remus hung his head, but undermined the contrite posture by peering up at her through his fringe with twinkling eyes. "You've made me heartily ashamed of myself."

The back door opened, and Aberforth shambled through to the bleating of goats. Sitting up, Remus waved to him, and the barman nodded, once, and grunted his acknowledgment that he had customers.

"Pity," said Remus, "that you hadn't the foresight to assume a morph other than your mother's. Engaging in a drinking contest at the Hog's Head would have guaranteed you access to Knockturn Alley."

"Divination was _not_ my subject," Tonks said. 

"But I assume since you qualified for the Auror programme, you can brew a potion?"

Tonks stared. "What the hell's _that_ got to do with the price of tea in China?"

"You want tea," growled Aberforth from across the bar, where he was waiting on a customer who'd been sat at the bar since they arrived, "go to that damned Puddlefoots."

Chuckling quietly, Remus touched her knee and leant toward her. "Can you?"

"If I haven't tripped and spilt all the ingredients first. Let me tell you how Professor Snape never let me forget _that_."

Withdrawing his hand, Remus turned his head sharply to look at her, and Tonks saw his sandy brows had got lost in his fringe. "Severus was your Potions master?"

"Yeah, why? Did you...go to school with _him_?"

Lines of his face deepening, his eyes sought Aberforth again, with an urgent look. "Mm. He was in my year."

_Snape's that young?_ Her mouth fell open in shock. _If she'd been drinking, she'd have choked on her Firewhisky. That means when Snape taught you...He'd have been in his bloody twenties! Impossible! He can't have been that young! Ever!_

She registered Remus' expression. Had she made him self-conscious about his age? No, why would he be?

_If he's interested in you..._

Ridiculous. If he were interested, he'd have thought about the difference in their ages before now.

_Unless you seemed more mature than twenty..._

"Well," she blurted, "you may be a bit grey, but Snape looks ten years older, at least. Fifteen."

_Are you out of your bleeding mind, Tonks? That voice didn't suit your disguise at all, and you don't care whether Remus is interested in you. And if you do care, then you shouldn't be making him feel better about his age, because you should be putting him off, not encouraging him._

Fortunately, he didn't seem to be encouraged, if his short, almost bitter, laugh was any indication. "That's a relief," he said, then nodded as Aberforth at last sauntered toward them.

"Don't look so annoyed, you old sod," said Tonks in her best crone voice. "I'll be payin' ye twice what yer damn whiskey's worth."

Aberforth's eyes flicked toward her, looked her dubiously over, then looked to Remus. "Who's she?"

"Allow me to introduce you to Elphine. She's in Potions."

It was all Tonks could do not to break character to praise the way Remus had thought ahead.

The barman's gaze drifted slowly back to Tonks. "Know anything about goat potions?"

"I should hope I did!" Tonks spat huffily, even though she hadn't the faintest idea what sort of potions a goat would need. Apparently neither did Remus, whose lips were pressed so tightly together to keep from grinning that they'd turned white. Spurred by the look of unmistakable amused admiration in his eyes as he watched her, Tonks impulsively reached for the end of Aberforth's long, white beard and tweaked it. "Oi! Do ye want me money or don't ye? Get me an Ogden's Old."

"I'll have the same, thanks," Remus choked. 

Aberforth turned to get their drinks, muttering something about maybe asking her later about goat potions. 

Meeting Remus' eye, Tonks cackled again -- making Aberforth jump -- then leant toward Remus. His hand rested lightly on her shoulder as she leant toward him to murmur, "Well that was fun. Are you going to introduce me to the other dodgy customers? Do you even know them?"

"Some," he whispered. "Most by sight only. But you won't need introductions. Being seen is quite enough, and if Aberforth's asking you for potions for his goats, I'd say you're as good as golden to go about Knockturn Alley as if you'd had another drinking contest."

His hand fell away from her as Aberforth turned and shuffled back to plonk their drinks in front of them on the bar. Tonks felt tension creep down her back, as though Remus' touch had somehow squelched her latent niggling thought that he'd skirted the subject of his underworld acquaintances a little too quickly and deliberately. She hoped Aberforth, who was stood staring at her, wouldn't be working up to a chat about goat potions. Because not only did she have no idea whatsoever what she would say to him, but she really wanted to find out a few things about Remus.

Luckily, as she was debating an escape dash for the loo, another tavern patron called out for the barman.

The instant Aberforth was out of earshot, she turned on Remus, who was wiping off the lip of his tumbler on his sleeve. 

"How do you know I'm in?" she asked.

"Experience," he said, then raised his glass to his lips.

"But how did you get it? Or _why_?"

He lowered his drink and looked at her with...amusement?...exasperation? 

"Does it matter?"

Tonks stared into her Firewhisky, wanting desperately to take a drink, but knowing she couldn't, not on the job, not when she'd a training session back at the Ministry in less than an hour.

_Go on, Tonks. You don't need liquid courage to say what you want to say._

"I just don't see what a bloke like you would have to do with the seedier side of London."

Remus set his tumbler down quite hard, and Tonks heard herself inhale sharply as his mouth was suddenly very close to her ear, breath tickling her neck, sending a shiver down her spine that invaded her insides, as well.

"And what sort of bloke am I?" he whispered. 

Her heart stood still, and she forgot to breathe, as the question reverberated in her mind. 

_What sort of bloke was Remus Lupin?_

On the one hand, he was all professor: intelligent, witty, well-spoken, with old-fashioned manners and class. On the other, he wasn't a professor in any sense of the word -- not when she compared him to McGonagall or Flitwick or Sinistra or any of those she'd considered really great teachers. Remus was brilliant, wickedly clever, absolutely smooth, and exuded charm. But that wasn't the only other side. He was also shabby, secretive, and somehow seemed to keep one step ahead of her, all the time. None of it meshed. None of it made sense.

_You see, Tonks? You've got too close, and let him confuse you. He can't possibly be that complicated. He's got to be one thing or the other, hasn't he?_

"I don't know," Tonks replied, quietly, turning her head to look up at him. "I can't figure you out."

"So I'm a mystery, then." 

His eyes darkened in the dim tavern light and with intensity as he took another slow drink. Tonks' gaze travelled downward, watching the roll of the Firewhisky down his slender throat.

"Yeah."

One side of his mouth curved upward slightly, in the faintest ghost of a smile. "But you like mysteries."

_There's that charm again. Don't let him distract you._

Tonks wanted to look away, but his gaze held hers. She willed her voice to be steady, even though everything inside her was quaking. "Generally."

Remus blinked. Had she chipped that smooth veneer? She couldn't tell, because she was, ridiculously, noticing that his light blond eyelashes were very long.

A detail she couldn't have noticed if he had not, at that moment, leant toward her, cheek just brushing hers, to speak once again in her ear: "Do you want to solve me, Elphine?"

He had whispered, but it seemed louder -- because, Tonks suddenly realised, the Hog's Head Inn had gone silent. 

In the instant of registering this, she saw, in her peripheral, that Aberforth was stood frozen, holding a beer mug in one hand and a filthy towel in the other, glowering in the direction of the front door.

At the same moment, she and Remus snapped to alertness and looked at the person who had just walked in: a squat, unshaven, baggy-faced, stringy-haired man, who gave the impression he'd stolen his clothes off the back of a homeless Muggle. He clenched a vile looking pipe between his teeth, and something about him struck Tonks as vaguely familiar.

She recoiled as her nostrils pricked with an odour -- not booze or tobacco or even goat -- wafting about the room. 

"Bloody hell!" she choked. "What's that stink?"

"Mundungus Fletcher," Remus muttered, and a quick glance at him found his nose crinkled.

"I asked _what_, not who." Tonks waved her hand to clear the air a bit, and when she gasped in a slightly less putrid breath, had the clarity of mind to think she'd heard the name before.

"Interesting he's here," Remus went on as though he hadn't heard her, "as Aberforth put a lifetime ban on him in '76."

"Blimey! You've got to be dodgier than dodgy to get banned from a place like this."

"He's in and out of Azkaban as frequently as I was in and out of detention at Hogwarts."

That was right. She'd seen Fletcher's mug shot in the file room. 

_Wait? Did Remus just say he'd been in and out of detention at Hogwarts?_

But he'd continued talking, a nostalgic smile creeping over his face. "I was here the day it happened. Best bar fight I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing."

After the bit about detention, Tonks shouldn't have been surprised, but it seemed she was fated to a lifetime of doing things she shouldn't. "You like bar fights?"

Remus twitched his eyebrows and gave the grin of a person confessing to a guilty pleasure. "I like bar fights at the Hog's Head. Don't look so surprised, Elphine. Haven't I got to have a dodgy interest or two, if I can run with the Knockturn Alley crowd?"

Tonks opened her mouth in retort, but Remus shushed her.

"What the hell are you doing here, Dung?" Aberforth spat.

Tonks raised her eyebrows at Remus. "_Dung_?"

"Suits, don't you think?" he whispered back.

Fletcher's beady eyes darted all over the room, and his brow was shiny with sweat in the lamplight as he puffed on his pipe. "You're brother," he croaked, taking a bandy-legged step forward, stench closing in on the bar as he did, "Dumbledore--"

"He ain't the only Dumbledore, you know," Aberforth interrupted.

With a gurgling sound in his throat that might have been a nervous chuckle, Fletcher took another drag on his pipe. "Albus... 'e says you an' me need to let our gones lie by."

Beside Tonks, Remus sniggered into his Firewhisky. _Merlin, what she wouldn't give for a drink._

She wished hard for one, for anything, to get control of herself, when Aberforth gave a contemptuous snort and said, "Albus dresses like that Lockhart ponce, and he's a damned fool if 'e thinks I'll lay anything by the likes of you, you filthy snitch."

"What about a business opportunity?" Fletcher bared his teeth in what Tonks could only assume was meant to be a winning smile. "Chance of a lifetime."

"That's what you said about the goats," Aberforth shot back, slapping his towel on the bar. "You're a filthy sodding bastard, Dung Fletcher, and I won't have no part of you're filthy sodding..." He held up his hands, palms out, and wiggled his fingers. "..._business opportunities._"

Remus snorted into his drink again, and Tonks, doubled over, both with silent laughter and agony at the odour emanating from Fletcher, whispered, "Did he mean to make quotes?"

"The pitfalls of illiteracy," Remus whispered back, sniggering. "Remind me to tell the Headmaster."

They both grimaced as Fletcher scuttled still closer to the bar, an imploring look on his face. "But Abby, mate--"

Drawing himself up to full height, Aberforth, though thin, actually looked as imperious as his brother could, as he crossed his arms over his chest and glowered down over the bar.

Another choked laugh as Fletcher smoked. "Aberforth," he amended. "Only you're so much better than me at Charms. I'll kill the ruddy things, likely as not, and then I'd 'ave to go to the trouble of findin' someone even stupider to buy 'em than I'm already lookin' for."

The furrows on Aberforth's brow turned to arches of interest, and Tonks thought her own expression must match it. 

_What ruddy things do you want to sell, Fletcher, that you're afraid of killing?_

"You're not trying to sell nothin' to me?" Aberforth asked in low monotone.

"Bloody hell, no, mate!" cried Fletcher, dropping his pipe, then falling on his knees on the grimy tavern floor to scrabble for it. "I need you to help me hide the merchandise for a while, till I find me a customer! Just...disguise the little bastards, squeeze a few more goats into your pen--"

"I won' be arrested again for performing inappropriate charms on animals!" Aberforth roared, one hand balling into a fist as the other delved into his pocket for his wand. "Now you get out of my pub, you miserable piece of shite!"

"But Dumbledore said--"

"_Albus_ said if I get myself nicked for inappropriate charms again, he won't look after my goats one more time while I rot in Azkaban. And I won't see 'em packed off to no bleeding dairy farm! Now out with you! And stay out!" Brandishing his wand, Aberforth bellowed, "_EICIO_ DUNG!"

Fletcher's legs kicked madly as the Bouncer Spell levitated him into the air. Arms hooked at either side of him, as if snatched up by two invisible giants, He was swept through the Hog's Head and flung out onto the front porch, landing with a painful thump on his backside.

"_What_ is that smell?" Tonks moaned as the trail of his stench made her want to gag. "It's like...slime...or mould...or...or--Oh!" 

Her stool wobbled as she sat bolt upright, but Remus caught the back of the stool, steadying it. His eyebrows were raised in question.

"A marsh!" Tonks said. "A great dirty bog! Like the wetlands where the Sherringham Snidget Sanctuary is!" She slid forward on her bar stool to get up. "Fletcher's the Snidgetnap--"

A crack cut her off. 

A crack of Disapparation. 

A crack of Mundungus Fletcher, Snidgetnapper, Disapparating from right between her fingers.

"Dammit!" Tonks shouted, and pounded her fist on the bar, rattling the whiskey glasses and making heads turn all over the Hog's Head. Not caring, she plunged a hand in her pocket and drew out her money pouch, fingers shaking, fumbling at the strings. "Thanks for all your help, Remus. I'm sorry to rush, but I've got to--"

His hand caught hers, keeping her from getting to her money. 

"Remus--"

"Dung's _Disapparated_," he interrupted gently. "You can't track him now."

"But I can alert the squad--"

"If the Auror department didn't care about the case before it was given to you," Remus spoke over her again, "then Scrimgeour's not going to send his Aurors out to chase someone who's currently untrackable and will be laying low until he can formulate another plan." He grinned wryly and added, "And I know Dung, it'll take a while."

Twisting to escape his grasp, Tonks argued, "Then I'll go talk to more people, get ahead of him--Remus, _let go_!"

His fingers relaxed around her wrist, but he didn't let go completely. "When was the last time you forgot about work, Elphine, and spent an evening having a drink with a friend?"

His other hand reached out to cup her face, to weave his fingers into her hair.

_He can't mean this, Tonks. You're morphed as a hag. He's not really touching you like that, or looking at you like that, no matter what he said about only seeing your real yes, and he's not talking to you..._

...in soft, husky tones. "Or...with someone you fancy?"

The question rang in Tonks ears with Kingsley's from yesterday -- only yesterday? -- and something inside snapped.

"How dare you!" 

She jerked her hand away and plunged it into her money bag. 

"You don't know me, Remus Lupin!" 

Slamming a few coins down onto the bar -- she wasn't even sure which ones or how many -- she bumped her glass and sent a wave of Firewhisky toward Remus' lap.

"You don't know anything about me!"

Blundering back from the bar, she toppled her stool, and barely avoided falling over it. 

"You don't even know my bloody _name_!"

"Sure 'e does," came Aberforth's voice from behind the bar -- and Tonks glanced to find him grinning gleefully. "Said you was called Elphine."

"You don't give a damn about my social life!" she flung at Remus, who'd been sat there rigidly, and not reacted to anything she'd said, or even to the Firewhisky she'd spilt on him. "You don't give a damn about my case, except that you don't want me to solve it!"

At last, Remus reacted -- sort of. Calmly, showing no sign at all of having just been shouted at by a mad crone, he slid off his barstool, cast a drying charm over his robes, then laid a few Sickles on the counter. Tonks thought, for a moment, that he was going to leave her without a word, or without even looking at her again.

The latter he did not do, but he did speak, very quietly: "Shouldn't we take this outside, Elphine, before you destroy your cover beyond all repair?"

Tonks stalked ahead of him to the door, ignoring Aberforth when he called to her that he'd send an owl about goat potions. Once in the street, she span on her heel and folded her arms as she watched Remus stride slowly out of the tavern and shut the door carefully behind him. She recognised his deliberate movements as those of a man battling a temper, and braced herself, physically grinding her heels into the cobbles, for a battle royal.

For some reason, she wasn't prepared for the quiet blue anger in Remus' eyes as he stood almost toe-to-toe with her. "Why, in Merlin's name, wouldn't I want you to apprehend a thief who stole a flock of rare, endangered birds?"

"Why are you protecting Hagrid?" she shot back.

"Two reasons."

"One?"

"Hagrid is my friend, and has been for a long time."

"And two?"

His gaze flickered from hers for just a split second, so that if she had blinked she would have missed it. There was guilt there, she was sure of it. Every thread of suspicion she'd had about him wove together now to form an irrefutable tapestry.

"Because Dumbledore asked me to," Remus answered. "He trusted the reputation of Hogwarts to me. And you haven't answered my question."

"If I catch the Snidgetnapper," Tonks returned, "MLE brings down the whole underground magical creature trade. If _that_ happens, you've got no one to sell your Kappa to when you've finished..." She raised her hands and made quote marks in the air with her fingers as she said "..._teaching_ with it."

Gaze dropping, Remus blinked, rapidly, and knit his eyebrows. 

_Good work, Tonks. You've wrong-footed him now. He'll give himself away._

"I told you," he said, "I return my specimens to the places I find them." Meeting hers again, he asked, "You think I lied?"

Tonks had a fleeting thought of being impressed that he could look her in the eye and lie so convincingly, but she said, "Yeah. I do."

The ripple of his jaw muscle as it tensed beneath his pale skin was his only reaction.

_Only a liar could be so blank._

"Yes, well," said Remus in clipped syllables. "There is nothing I can do about your distrust, but I can try to correct your flawed logic."

Inwardly, Tonks bristled at his professorial tones, but she gave a dismissive snort. "My logic's not flawed."

"I've got a well-paying teaching position. Why would I need to sell Dark Creatures, or any other kind of creatures, on the black market?"

"Exactly!" Tonks cried. "You've got a professor's salary! But you haven't got children to spend it on, or a wife, or even a girlfriend -- and I know you haven't got one, because if you had, you wouldn't be spending your weekends hunting spent hunting for Dark Creatures. You've got room and board at the school, but you haven't bought yourself a set of decent robes. Explain that, Lupin."

Recalling how warmly he'd asked her to call him Remus, Tonks half-expected him to flinch at her return to the professionally detached surname. But it was the final nail in the coffin. If he'd felt anything for her at all, fancy or friendship, it would have shown on his face then.

"What house were you in, Miss Tonks?"

_House? At Hogwarts? What the--?_

"Only if I were to guess now, it would have to be Slytherin."

The words, though not in the least cuttingly uttered, pierced Tonks keenly. She had an impression of watching the anger bleed out of her as the snipped threads of the tapestry she -- not truth -- had, so loosely woven together, unravelled.

_Oh. Dear. God. _

Tonks -- what have you done? Hufflepuffs are just and true, and what have you done? Judged and accused. And--

Hurt him.

She'd hurt him. She saw it in the silvery flash of his eyes as they glanced at her once more before he turned away. Turned, with slumping shoulders, and slowly walked away from the cobbles outside the Hog's Head Inn.

He _did_ care. He'd shown it from the moment he'd first laid eyes on her, in the glow of the magical flame cupped in his hand. The only time he had _not_ shown it was now, when she'd betrayed him, and he'd turned the fire inward to shield himself from the terrible onslaught of her misdirected frustration and anger.

_Because he cares._

The sight of his thin frame, in the patched robes she'd criticised, retreating alone toward High Street, sent another stab of guilt through her.

_And so do you._

She opened her mouth to call to him, to call Remus, but the words stuck in her throat. 

_If you care, call to him. It's not too late. _

She moved a foot toward, but couldn't go on. 

_Go after him, you idiot! If he cares, he'll forgive you. It's not too late._

Except that it was. 

A glance at her wristwatch told her that she was supposed to have been at her training session ten minutes ago. 

She looked at Remus, rounding the corner, toward the brewing thunderstorm.

When he was out of sight, she Disapparated to London.

* * *

**_A/N: Thanks to all who read and commented on the previous chapter. This time, reviewers get a pet name from Remus. :)_**


	4. Cases Closed, Files Opened

  


**4. Cases Closed, Files Opened**

Tonks sat in the Auror Training Room, where she and Kinglsey had remained for the past half an hour following the class to which she'd been almost twenty minutes late. She'd endured a lecture about her tardiness, which had been increased by a stop to morph her own face back, which Kingsley had been sure to let her know was ill-advised. After that, he'd moved on to pick apart, point-by-point, her interview at the Hog's Head. All the time he paced the platform at the front of the room, hands clasped behind his back.

Apart from answering his questions, Tonks said nothing. Ordinarily, she'd have defended herself, but now she felt numb, capable only of staring blearily at him through burning eyes.

Her behaviour didn't go unnoticed. "Tonks," Kingsley said firmly, stepping off the platform to stand over her desk, pinning her with eyes that were dark and intense beneath his heavy brow. "I've just said your Fletcher Is The Snidgetnapper theory's not a sure bet. Shouldn't you be saying, _Like hell it's not_?"

Shrugging, she picked at the too-short sleeve of her hag robe, which she hadn't transfigured back to her own clothing, and was beginning to chafe the sensitive skin above her wrist.

"Cos it's not," she whispered.

"Eh?"

Though her throat constricted painfully as a large knot lodged there, Tonks forced herself to speak louder. "Just what you said. Clues might fit a crime, but it doesn't mean they're actually clues. Re--Lupin could just as conceivably fit."

Kingsley arched his brows in an expression that almost looked like scepticism, though it couldn't be, not after he'd just torn her investigation to shreds. "Do you really believe that?"

Tonks' gaze dropped to her bony morphed ankles, accentuated by the ragged woollen stockings, the clunky men's work boots that gaped, untied, and the baggy robes that stopped too far up her calves.

_Look at yourself, Tonks, half-disguised and getting lectured after class. Some things never change. You're still just a schoolgirl who lacks the ability to behave yourself._

"Tonks?" 

"Yes," she gritted out between clenched teeth the answer to his previous question. 

"Look at me, Tonks."

She did, and saw Kingsley's eyebrows arch. "Do you believe that?"

Dragging her fingers through her hair, she said, "I just told you--"

"A few minutes before that you were convinced only Fletcher fit the bill."

"You made me see other options."

"Did I?" 

It was the moment where, at any previous encounter like this, Tonks' eyes would have locked with Kingsley's and she'd have sat up straight in her chair, chin jutted in defiance as she stood, immovably, by her own ideas. Not this time. Every ounce of energy and passion sapped by her row with Remus, Tonks couldn't even bring herself to meet Kingsley's stare properly, because her eyes kept blinking against the prick of tears.

As Kingsley studied her, the frustration etched on his powerful features gradually faded, leaving only a brow furrowed with confusion as his brown eyes softened in concern.

"Have you given up, Tonks?"

She looked down as she let out a shuddering breath. "Shouldn't I? Obviously I'm crap at investigation. Anyway it's interfering with my training."

Kingsley sighed heavily and ran a hand over his stubbly cheek. "You were only late tonight."

"I cut last night."

"I gave you _permission_ to cut," Kingsley said, an edge creeping back into his deep tones even as he lowered himself to sit on the top of the desk beside hers, in the position of colleague rather than superior. "Why would you say that about your investigation skills? You've always had top marks, and even though I picked apart your theories just now, I didn't mean they were necessarily wrong. You know me, Tonks. You know how I drill. If I can't be tough on Mad-Eye's protégée, who can I be tough on?"

She nodded, but still didn't look at him. "I just think..." Her lips felt parched, so she tried to moisten them with her tongue. But her tongue was dry, too. Swallowing didn't help, either. She croaked, "I ought to stop, and get back to normal cadet stuff. I'm no better than any of the others, but it looks like I think I am."

For a moment the room was heavy with silence, then Kingsley said, "I see. This is about what other people think. Have any of the other cadets said anything?"

"Not to me."

"Have you overheard anything?"

Tonks shook her head. 

"Then this isn't about the other cadets. Who are you worried about thinking poorly--?" 

Kingsley stopped so suddenly that Tonks reflexively looked up at him. Her stomach plummeted at the sight of his features lighting up with dawning realisation. She tore her eyes from his and slid out of her seat.

Trudging across the room, she stood with her back to him, hands balled into fists at her sides, bracing herself for the lecture she'd so wanted to avoid, about how the line between personal and professional had got so blurred.

"This...is about _Lupin_ thinking poorly of you," said Kingsley, the pitch of his voice rising questioningly. "But why...?"

"You know what you said about him being as likely as Fletcher?"

"That was just an example. I didn't actually mean I thought Lupin--" He stopped short again. "Oh, Tonks, you didn't..."

"Yeah. I did _actually_. In fact I actually accused him."

"Of stealing the Snidgets?" 

Though she wasn't looking at him, Tonks pictured Kingsley's eyes rounding in disbelief. Bowing her head, she raised a hand to rub cradle her forehead. "Of being part of some great underground magical creature trade."

Of all the reactions she'd imagined Kingsley might have, laughter -- of any sort, much less a rippling chuckle that rumbled richly through the classroom -- had not been among them.

Astonished, and at the end of her tether, Tonks whirled unsteadily to face him, grabbing at the blackboard's chalk rail to keep her balance, and shouted, "It's not funny!"

"It is, quite," puffed Kingsley, shoulders shaking. "Though _you're_ supposed to be the one with the sense of humour."

"I am," Tonks ground out through gritted teeth. "And no. It's _not_." 

Pulling himself together, Kingsley's long strides carried him across the room to her. Tonks flinched as he moved to put a hand on her shoulder, but she relaxed under the comforting weight of it when she saw that his gaze contained neither condescension nor criticism.

"I'm sorry I laughed," he said. "But you're too hard on yourself, Tonks. You're bound to make mistakes, you know. You're young."

Nodding, she tried to give him a little smile of thanks, but was pretty sure she failed as miserably at that as she had failed with Remus. With a heavy sigh, she shrugged from Kingsley's touch and walked way from him again, wrapping her arms around herself.

"But not too young to hurt a man," she said.

"You probably pissed him off a bit, yeah, but that's not quite the same thing as hurt."

"I know hurt when I see it, Kingsley." Her voice broke. "Remus definitely was."

"_Remus_," Kingsley repeated. She heard the faint scratch of his stubble against his palm as he rubbed his face again. "Do you...fancy him?"

Her chin dropped onto her chest as a few blue curls fell over her forehead. 

"Bugger," he muttered. "Tonks, if my joke put that idea into your head--"

"You didn't. _He_ did." She couldn't stop herself smiling slightly. "He is quite fanciable. You said yourself, there were always at least a dozen girls that did."

"That may be," Kingsley said, coming back into possession of his usual commanding tone, "but you do realise, don't you, that this can't be a precedent? Over the course of your career, you'll encounter a lot of fanciable blokes, but you simply can't give into it--"

"It won't be a problem." 

Considering how low her overall confidence level was at the moment, Tonks surprised herself with the assertiveness of the statement. For the first time since she'd got back to the Ministry, Tonks held her shoulders erect and met Kingsley's eye steadily.

"I wouldn't have got interested at all if Remus hadn't fancied me first."

Kingsley gave an indulgent half-grin. 

"What's that?" Tonks' arms crossed. "Think I'm too young to be fancied?"

Kingsley rolled his eyes. "Will you sue me for sexual harassment if I say you're twenty and hot, and I'd have to make certain assumptions about any bloke who _didn't_ flirt with you?"

"And will _you_ sue _me_ if I ask if that's you confessing you're gay?"

Hands flying to his hips, Kingsley tried to glower, but laughed. "And you're a right comedienne, as well." 

"I really need to drop this Auror thing and get a different career."

Grin falling, Kingsley stepped toward her. "I'm serious, Tonks. Being that you're twenty and attractive in every sense, don't you think you'll encounter this again?"

Tonks jutted her chin and gave her head a defiant little toss. 

_You're coming back into your own again, Tonks. Don't give up._

"No. I don't."

Kingsley arched his eyebrow, but Tonks, for once, defied his request for a further explanation. There was no way to make another person understand that what she'd felt with Remus was a connection which, in her experience, was a rare thing. Practically nonexistent.

"It won't be a problem," she repeated. "I don't need a sodding boyfriend. I just need to find these bloody Snidgets."

"And I need to find Sirius Sodding Black," said Kingsley, "but that's not the _only_ thing I need."

Knowing exactly where this was headed, Tonks said, "Kingsley, _please_ don't lecture me about my social life."

"You were tardy to my class, Tonks. It's my prerogative to lecture you about anything I think relates to that."

He launched into the rant she'd heard a million times, about how, as an Auror, it was important to be a well-rounded individual, and to look after relationships beyond the squad. Precisely because of situations such as this, where the relationship between investigators and subjects were often entrenched with emotion. This had been a wake-up call to him, as well, that he needed to pay more attention to his personal life--

Not for the first time since she'd started the Auror training programme, Tonks blessed the purple paper aeroplane memo that zoomed into the classroom at exactly the right moment, interrupting Kingsley.

Kingsley caught it, but it was _her_ name that was scrawled on the wing flap. 

She opened it as he taunted her about the suspicious timing and whether she had charms that sent memos when she didn't want to hear his lectures, and read the department secretary's writing: _Floo call from Professor R.J. Lupin. Tonks' first hunch correct. Hogwarts, ASAP._

First hunch? 

Hagrid? 

He had the Snidgets, after all? 

She didn't want to believe that Remus had known all along, but unless she'd pricked his conscious, why would he tell her now, after--?

_Doesn't matter. Time to work._

"Kingsley!" She grabbed his arm. "You've got to go to Hogwarts _now_."

"Why?"

"Rubeus Hagrid's got the Snidgets, and I'm not qualified to arrest."

"Right." Immediately, Kingsley was racing from the classroom. In the corridor, he threw back over his shoulder. "Well -- aren't you coming along?"

"I--"

"I may be the arresting Auror, but I won't take credit for solving _your_ case."

A very huge, very un-Aurorly, smile broke across her face as she followed him, and she didn't care. Not at all. 

In the Emergency Portkey Room, Tonks immediately reached for the first edition copy of _Hogwarts, A History_ that would take them to the school -- but Kingsley caught her arm. 

"One more thing."

She held her breath, waiting for him to tell her not to let Remus be a distraction. 

"Transfigure your own clothes back. You don't want to be dressed like a hag when the _Prophet_ reporters come to photograph the hot, funny, twenty-year-old Auror cadet who saved Great Britain's Snidget population from extinction."

* * *

Accustomed as Tonks was to her body being stretched and pulled and pressed into all sorts of unfamiliar shapes, the strange sensations described by most people who travelled by Portkey had never fazed her. Thus her surprise when this one deposited her outside the front gates of Hogwarts, and she felt a sharp tug at her navel, followed by a buckling sensation in every organ in her stomach region. She started to ask Kingsley if that was what it always felt like, when her brain registered, with a jolt, that the way she felt had nothing to do with the Portkey...

...and everything to do with Remus standing on the other gate, blue fire in hand. 

_Exactly like the first time you laid eyes on him._

He was looking at her, as if he'd known the precise spot in the grass where she would appear, and his gaze never wavered from her as he swiftly unlocked the gate, not even when Kingsley greeted him with a genial, "_Long time no see, mate._"

Behind her, lightning flashed, reflected in Remus' eyes. 

Her own heart pounded as she was struck with a torrent of feelings: from wishing he was looking at her with tenderness, to acknowledging that at best it could be described as an intense look. At least it didn't seem to be an overly negative intensity...

_Mind on the job, Tonks. You still don't know where he stands on this. If he covered for Hagrid, even under Dumbledore's orders, he's still guilty, an accessory to the crime._

She strode ahead of the men, toward Hagrid's cabin, and called back over her shoulder to Remus. "How long have you known the Snidgets were here?"

Before she turned to watch where she was walking, she glimpsed confusion flicker one his furrowed brow. "A quarter of an hour, perhaps? Maybe ten minutes? Hagrid sent me an SOS that Dung had turned up, and he was in danger of getting himself in even greater trouble than he already is over the Hippogriff."

Tonks span so suddenly on her heel that Remus didn't have time to stop, and she tumbled into him. His hand on her upper arm steadied her; she tried not to think about his breath feeling like a caress on her forehead as she looked up at him.

"Fletcher's in the cabin?" she asked breathlessly.

Nodding, Remus replied, very quietly, "Yes."

He kept his hand on her arm, and Tonks remained rooted to the ground. In her heart, she knew that her steady gaze was a silent plea for him to show her what he was feeling so she could do her job; her mind told her it was ridiculous -- he couldn't possibly understand what she was asking.

Except that in that instant, the flame he held at her shoulder dispelled the darkness from his eyes, at once revealing a pain that stopped in her heart as the lightning shocked the sky; and deeper, a fainter light that could only be _hope_, because the sight of it made her pulse beat again.

Minutes...hours...days...passed in that moment. When Tonks stepped back from Remus, and she watched his hand fall from her arm to his side once again, and saw Kingsley's arm still hovering in the air as he, too, had reached to catch her, it became evident that only a split-second had elapsed since she'd collided with him.

"Have you been in the cabin?" she asked. 

"That's your job," Remus answered. 

They shared another brief look, then, at a nod from Kingsley, the two Aurors drew their wands and ran the rest of the way to the cabin.

Kingsley's longer strides carried him there first, but Tonks made up for height by increasing her speed and sprinting through the door as Kingsley opened it.

"Aurors, freeze!" Kingsley bellowed over the pounding of her boots on the floorboards and the rumble of thunder outside. "Hands in the air, wands down!"

Automatically, Tonks pointed her wand at the immediately visible hulking form of Hagrid, who put his hands up; but then, her brain registering that hers wasn't the only wand trained on him, she lowered it to the squat figure of Mundungus Fletcher.

Who had just waved his wand and croaked, "_Imperial_! You _will_ buy the Snidgets!"

"_Expelliarmus_!" Tonks shouted, as Kingsley roared, "_Incarcerous_!"

Fletcher startled, and his ever-present, reeking pipe fell from his gaping mouth. His wand flew from his hand as heavy robes materialised in the air, and then shot toward him, binding his hands behind his back and his feet together at the ankles. He toppled, wriggling, to the floor, a stream of incomprehensible babble pouring from his mouth which Tonks assumed must be every swear word in the English language.

Kingsley silenced him, and as he read Fletcher his rights, Tonks caught her breath and finally had a chance to take in the scene.

Rubeus Hagrid, standing frozen in the middle of his living room, arms still raised, was indeed in possession of the stolen Snidgets.

Or rather, _they_ seemed to be in possession of _him_. 

His long, shaggy mane and wild beard resembled a black, hairy Christmas tree, barely visible beneath dozens of golden, bejewelled baubles. Apparently the Hogwarts groundskeeper and Care of Magical Creatures teacher was the ideal nesting place for a flock of Snidgets.

"I know yeh can use it against me before the Wizengamot," said Hagrid, eyes welling with great tears, "but it ain't what it looks like. Little blighters flew at me when Dung opened their cage!"

His black eyes darted sidelong, to a wicker cage stood on the table. How on earth had Dung fit all the Snidgets in there? 

"You can lower your hands now, Hagrid," Tonks said, trying not to laugh. 

Merlin's beard -- this was the most ridiculous crime in the history of Wizarding law. Snidgets nesting in a beard...Fletcher trying to cast the _Imperius Curse_ but saying _Imperial. _

Stop it, Tonks, don't you dare laugh, even if Scrimgeour would hire you for your sense of humour.

Poor Hagrid -- he must have been terrified. 

Just as the actual arrest had been a bit of a blur, Tonks only had a vague impression of the aftermath. One moment she was comforting Hagrid, the next sending word to Scrimgeour that he could tell Amelia Bones the Snidget case was closed, and that they needed to transport a prisoner to Azkaban. Then came the matter of getting the Snidgets out of Hagrid's beard and back in their cage, for which she and Kingsley were both woefully untrained. Luckily, just as they'd succeeded in pissing off the flock, as evidenced by the angry red eyes and onslaught of pecking, someone from the Sheringham Snidget Sanctuary turned up and took over _that_ task. 

From that point on, Tonks was caught in a steady flow of congratulations from people who kept turning up: MLE department heads and other Ministry officials; Dumbledore, who thanked her for her personal dedication and discipline, which had protected not only Hagrid from imprisonment, but preserved the school's reputation; someone from _The Quibbler_ who wanted to know whether the Dementors would be leaving Hogwarts now there was no longer any need to pretend Sirius Black had escaped; Rita Skeeter from the _Daily Prophet_, who rattled off something about Sirius Black's second-cousin, whose application to the Auror department had been rejected, proved her worth by apprehending a Snidgetnapper the MLE couldn't be bothered with; and magical creatures rights activists, who wanted her to attend dinners and conferences and said that if there was anything, _anything_ at all they could do to express their gratitude, she had only to say the word. 

But the only thing Tonks could think of that they could do for her was to leave, so she could go track Remus.

And his was the only face she kept searching for in the crowd, but never did find.

* * *

It was the rain that at last drove the influx of people off the school grounds. Tonks was still stuck in Hagrid's cabin getting a crash course in the aftermath of an arrest: finalising the crime scene report with Dawlish, going over the prisoner transport preparations with Kingsley. Scrimgeour, who hadn't stopped singing the praises of his youngest cadet, which was both flattering and rather annoying, encouraged her to accompany Kingsley to Azkaban, but she begged off.

"If it's all the same to you, Sir," she said, "I've put in a lot of extra time the past two nights, and I'd really like to..." She glanced sideways at Kingsley. "...look to my social life."

He gladly granted her request, and without another glance or word to anyone, Tonks bolted from the cabin. 

The rain was coming down in sheets, instantly soaking her to the skin, and turning the ground into a bog. She didn't let the slippery terrain or her heavy clothes slow her down, and she pressed on up the hill to the castle even when a stitch in her side begged her to stop and catch her breath. The light shone from Remus' office window.

Inside, her shoes squeaked and slipped on the marble floors, and she knew she was leaving a watermark on the carpets. If she'd been a student, and Filch had caught her, she'd have had detention for the rest of her life; hell, if he caught her now, he'd probably try to give her detention. But still she raced through the castle, up the stairs, down the corridor, not bothering to take out her wand and dry her hair or clothes.

At last, the Defence Against the Dark Arts office door loomed before her, and she slowed...then stopped.

She didn't wait to catch her breath.

She knocked on the door.

Eternity seemed to pass between the knock and the sound of Remus' chair creaking as he stood. She almost reached for the doorknob and opened it herself.

She settled for another knock.

"Just a moment," came Remus' muffled voice. 

No, she couldn't wait another moment. She grabbed the doorknob. 

As she touched it, Remus' hand, on the other side, turned it. 

The door swung inward, open. 

There stood Remus. 

Thin, pale Remus, the lines of his face deeply etched in the darkened corridor, with only the dim light from the office behind, and the lightning flashing at the windows, making him look tired.

_No -- you made him look tired, Tonks._

His blue eyes, open wide in surprise, but brilliant with hope, told her she could make it right. 

Without hesitation, she grabbed the tatty lapels of his robes and pulled him toward her as she arched up on her toes to meet his mouth with hers.

She kissed him hard, briefly. 

His eyes stayed open. One hand hung at his side. The other still clutched the doorknob.

She pulled back. Her heart thudded, once. Heavily.

His eyes were dark. He whispered, "What was that for?"

"That was _I'm sorry_."

Barely perceptibly, the lines smoothed from his face. She looked into his eyes and saw, so clearly, that he wanted her to kiss him again.

Her fingers clutched his robes again as she leant toward him. 

His fingers curling around her upper arm gently held her back. 

His breath caressed her forehead. Or was it his lips? 

"I'm sorry, too."

Tonks shook her head. "Don't be. You were right."

She leant into him again, and this time he was more yielding, one hand sliding over her forearm, covering her hands, as she kissed him. Softly this time, though still briefly.

He closed his eyes. 

They stayed closed, golden lashes brushing his fair skin, until Tonks whispered, "That was _Thank you_."

The lashes parted, and his eyes were so, so blue. "For what?"

"For my case. And for making me see I..." She hesitated then, catching herself about to say _need_, when she really meant, "I want something more than work in my life. Or a cat."

Even as his fingertips trailed down her arm to her elbow, then brushed her side as his palm settled on her waist, she kept glancing at the hand still grasping the doorknob. She wanted to feel _both_ hands fitted so perfectly over her hips as he dipped his head to...

...rest his forehead against hers. 

The look in his eyes was, unmistakably, longing. 

But he was waiting.

For her.

At the same moment, they exhaled. They breathed in again, together. 

Tonks tilted her face upward, and Remus remained perfectly still, allowing her to kiss him again. This time, her lips glided lingeringly over his, taking in their softness; she _just_ parted them with her tongue, and tasted his sweetness. 

When she tried to pull away, his hands -- both of them -- settled on her hips, holding her firmly in place. 

"And what was that one -- _Elphine_?"

The caress of his low, rasping voice, like a tender stroke of her skin, made her eyelids briefly flutter closed. "That was, _Can I solve your mysteries_?"

She felt, rather than saw his smile as, hands sliding round to her back, he pressed his cheek to hers. "Are you asking me to go out with you?"

Against his shoulder -- more solid than she had believed just by looking at his thin frame -- she nodded. "Yes."

His lips brushed her ear. 

She held her breath, so as not to miss his rasping...

"No."

She blinked. 

And exhaled. 

_No._

She pulled her head back from his shoulder. He couldn't have said no. Not after--

Yes, after. After she'd hurt him. 

Eyes down, releasing his robes, rumpled from her fingers twisting the fabric, she whispered, "I understand."

But when she tried to pull away, his hands at her back held her against him. "I haven't finished."

Her head snapped up, mouth open to ask him what he meant, why he was doing this. She had been cruel, but this was crueller. He--

--was pulling her through the door, and pushing it to, in one swift motion, like a dance step. Then he was pressing her back against it, pressing himself against her, covering her mouth with his.

Breath hot. 

Lips firm -- yet also soft. 

Careful, but thorough, as well. 

Tender, and yet leaving her in no doubt of his strength as she realised that it was his arm around her waist, and not her desperate clinging to his robes, that was even keeping her upright now.

Teeth, raking lightly over her bottom lip.

Tongue, tracing the inside edge of the upper.

Lips, opening and closing over hers.

Fingertips tracing her cheekbone. 

_Remus._

As his mouth left hers, she opened her eyes to his twinkling ones looking into them. 

"I was asking _you_ to go out with _me_," he said huskily. "Someplace nice. You know. Because I've made a success of the magical creature black market."

He was teasing. Teasing about her ridiculous accusation. She'd hurt him, but he could laugh about it. 

_He's forgiven you._

_She_ laughed, and burrowed her face in his robes. "You're never going to let me live that down, are you?"

His chest rumbled against her, soothingly, as he continued to chuckle, bending to kiss her hair, which he was running his fingers through. "Highly unlikely. Does that surprise you?"

"Not really."

"Nor," he said, sliding one of his lovely hands under her chin, to tilt her face up to his, "am I going to neglect to tease you about this being the sort of night a person really ought to wear a Mackintosh and Wellington boots."

"Oh, Merlin!" Face aflame, Tonks pushed him away and looked down at the floor. "I've tracked mud all over your rug!"

"Yes, I definitely want to take you out, seeing as you've got your priorities straight. Muddy rug -- always a greater concern than sopping clothes."

Face hotter, she looked up again, and saw how drenched the front of his robes were. Even his face shimmered from where he'd leant against her wet hair.

"Really, it's very considerate," said Remus, whipping out his wand, twirling it over his knuckles. "Drying Charms are _much_ simpler than carpet cleaning spells."

He dried them both off, then slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him, resting his check against her blue curls. "Ah, much better. It's a date, then?"

"Does that mean I've got to tell you my name?"

"I already know it..._Nymphadora_."

She looked up at him, mouth agape.

"You really shouldn't have thanked me for helping with your case," he said. "My motive was entirely selfish -- I had to solve mine."

"How--?"

"_Accio Evening Prophet._"

Releasing her with one arm, he caught the evening paper, and unfurled it to reveal the front page covered with a photograph of her cupping one of the golden Snidgets in her hands, handing it over to the warden of the Sheringham Sanctuary. Above it, in bold capitals, was printed: AUROR CADET NYMPHADORA TONKS CRACKS SNIDGET CASE THAT BAFFLED TOP MLE OFFICIALS.

"Does reading the paper count as solving a mystery?"

"Does having Dung stand up in the Hog's Head and all but shout his guilt?"

"You bet it does!" Tonks elbowed him in the ribs, but laughed as she re-read the newspaper headline. "Bit of an exaggeration, that. Especially considering how cracked some of my theories were."

Chuckling, Remus leant in to kiss the tip of her nose. "_My_ theories, on the other hand--"

"Blimey -- have you got the Second Sight?" Tonks interrupted. "You could've knocked me over with a quill after you said Elphine."

There was just a touch of smugness in his grin. "I knew I was on to something when I couldn't stop thinking that you had an elfin quality about you. Nymph _did_ occur to me--"

"Like hell it did!"

''--except that I couldn't think of any names that incorporated it."

"That's because there's only one, which my mum made up, and it's bloody awful."

"It's _lovely_," he said, surprising her a little with the assertiveness of his tone, and he squeezed her middle. 

"Dad calls me Dora."

"That's lovely, too, but if you prefer, I'll still call you Elphine."

"I do prefer," Tonks replied. Not just because she hated her name, but because she loved having a name -- not a clichéd pet name or endearment, but a real name -- only _he_ called her. 

"Of course I do reserve the right to use _Nymphadora_ should the occasion arise to tease you."

"But you tease all the time!"

Remus waggled his eyebrows. "I daresay you'll find plenty to tease me about in return."

"I prefer _this_ sort of teasing," Tonks said, tilting her face up to brush her lips to his -- just barely -- and then pulling away. 

He feigned a sulk. "No fair."

"Don't call me Nymphadora, Remus," she said, stretching up to kiss the corner of his mouth, "and you won't have to worry about that."

He'd just captured her mouth for a proper kiss, when a crash of thunder that rattled the windowpanes made them jump and bump noses.

"It was a dark and stormy night," said Remus, wrapping his arm more securely around her, tucking her head under his chin, "and two mysteries were solved."

Tonks looked up at him. "But not case closed?"

"No," he said, letting the _Evening Prophet_ fall to the floor so he could occupy his hands with other things. "Our file's only just been opened."

* * *

_**A/N: This time, those of you who review will get a Remus of your very own to kiss you against a door on a dark and stormy night.**_  



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